GIANTS OF THE FOREST. KAHIKATEA OR WHITE PINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

GIANTS OF THE FOREST. KAHIKATEA OR WHITE PINE.

By L. M. CRANWELL, M.A., Botanist, Auckland Museum. JUST when I was .wondering whether I should tell you of the autumn reddening of tawheowhco and makonjako, of creamy astelias by the shore, or of the quaint fungi that are popping up around our feet, my door opened, and a bunch of kahikatea was thrust in. There it was, the answer to my problem—its gay delightful red fruit winking up at me from their setting of trig little green leaves. They made me think of the lovely day outside, of tall trees by distant hikes and rivers, and then of all the work I must do if I were to reach Amsterdam by the beginning of a European autumn. So with a sigh I turned to long dead and dried specimens and dusted naphthalene amongst them till I sneezed, for that's the sign that means death to destructive little insects. I turned over a sheet, and what do you think I found? Why, the kahikatea that Captain Cook's comrades, Banks and Solaiuler, collected all those years ago on the first voyage. The label says:

Neic Zealand, 1769-70, Banks and Solander. but the rest is silence. . . . Were they collected by the Thames Eiver I wonder? Cook measured a great tree there 89ft to the first branch and 19ft Bin in circumference. That kaliikatea stood until just a few years ago, and then somebody wantonly destroyed it. We have no great churches and castles, no exquisite old sculpturing, tout we have had wonderful living monuments of older lineage. Wouldn't it be splendid still to be able to see that tree, knowing that Cook had seen it and marvelled over the small silver green bead set far above the silver trunk that is kahikatea's chief claim to beauty ?

In the early clays kahikatea covered lowland swamps and flat«s that, with drainage, were to prove sueli good pasture land. Less often you would find trees of great size in the hills, together with rimn and matai, or hard woods sucli as tawa and koliekohe. Naturally the swamp forests went early, for the clean, fresh creamy timber was light, easy to handle, and simply without a peer as a foodstuff-container. More and more was cut out when the country turned seriously to dairying. Probably there was less waste than in any other type of forest settlement in New Zealand. Each tree of the

grey crowded ranks, just like so many masts, made room for the precious grasses; each trunk made a hundred or so shining boxes, ready for golden butter and cheese. Near Hariliari, where Menzies landed, you will see this story still unfolding itself—forest, the mill, and smiling farming lands. Go a little further south, however, and you will find sad little farms that look as though the trees and the endless mists would some day gently coven them

up for ever. In this case I am torn by two feelings—pride that a New Zealand timber should have won such a great reputation amongst men, and sorrow that the swamp forests will soon be no more.

Ivahikatea is related to totara, miro, and matni, and with three other species (all seven are restricted to New Zealand) is grouped into a "genus" called Podocarpus, belonging to the Coniferae, or "soft woods." Kauri really does a cone, hut the members of this have fleshy or tiny nutlike fruits. In miro they are large and pink, while in kahikatea a little black beady nut (sweetly resinous) perches on top of a fleshy bright red "foot" or peduncle from which the genus gets its name. The Maori liked these fruits and climbed skilfully for them —no easy task amongst such brittle limbs—scattering great quantities on cleared patches below. The legend of the watery origin of the tree is told charmingly by Mr. R. M. Laing in " Plants of New Zealand." I am sorry I have no space to reproduce it for you.