KAURI — King Of The Forest

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 33 (Supplement)

KAURI — King Of The Forest

8y... A. G. Stevenson

(AUCKLAND MUSKUM)

When Captain Cook first came to New Zealand about 170 years ago he sj*?nt some time in the Mercury Bay and Thames districts, and it is strange that while he jvirticularly noticed the kahikatea trees he made no mention of the great groves of kauri which abounded in those parts, and which he must have seen. First discovery of the kauri seems to have been made by a Frenchman, Marion du Fresne. who put into the Bay of Islands for spars in 1772. Here he found kauri in such abundance that he considered it must be the commonest and highest tree in the country. Originally there were immense tracts of kauri forest on the North Auckland Peninsula and in the Comma nde! and Mercury Bay districts, but these have mostly disappeared, and were it not for the fact that certain areas have been set aside for reserves 1 am afraid that the kauri would be a very rare tree to-dav. As du Fresne imagined, it really was common in the north, but he did not know that it was restricted to a very small part of the country, none occurring south of Maketu on the east coast and Kawhia on the west. Apparently it had its origin in more tropical climes to the north and has gradually spread southward to its present limits. It may surprise you to know that this tree is found in other countries beside New Zealand. It grows in Queensland, Malaya. New Caledonia, Fiji and a few other places. As these countries are warmer the leaves are larger and greener, but the timber is practically the same, although the trees do not attain such a size as they do here. Our first visit to a kauri forest is one that we will not readily forget. The great, trees rise like mighty pillars on all sides, several feet thick, straight and clean without a branch tor 70 or 80 feet or even more. I suallv the undergrowth is somewhat sparse and we are able to see row upon row of these monarch* of the forest stretching away in all directions. Here and there we come across a big one. A diameter of six or ►even ieet is not uncommon, but the real

giants are much larger tlian this. There was one in the Mercury Bay district which measured 24 feet in diameter and SO feet to the lowest branch, but this has gone now and our largest known living kauri to-day, called Tane Mahuta, is considerably smaller. .Tust try to imagine the age of some of these giants, 'l'liev must have taken twi thousand years or more to grow to such dimensions. The Mercury Bay tree was perhaps well established at the time our history books teil u- • 'iilius Caesar was invading Britain. If' they could speak what stories they could tell. They saw the coming of Abel Tasman and of Captain Cook, even the coming of th< j Maori from the far off shores of Hawaiki. Who can tell what they saw before that? But with the coining of the white man they saw nothing but death and destruction. Axes rang in the valleys and fires swept the hillsides, while ships plied busily across the Taxman transporting millions of feet of valuable timber to markets over-

seas. So prreat was the demand for kauri timber and so great the destruction that within a few decades axe and tire liave converted thousands of acres of heavily forested country into open farm land.

The kauri belongs to the Pine family. that i> t<> t-ay. it bears cones somewhat similar to those of the

common ]>ine or fir tree. '1 he cones of the kauri, however, are round like a ball and from two to three inches in diameter. From the ripened cones the common pine. As the kauri cones fall to pieces lx-fore they drop they are seldom seen unless a tree i~ felled. Another likeness to the pine is to Infound in l lie fact that the whole tree is highly charged with resin which bleeds from any wound, and is the source of the kauri j:um of commerce.

Unlike the imported |>ine~ from tin* Northern Hemisphere. whiili all hear needles, our kauri lias flat and leathery leaves, two to three inches lonj;, moderately narrow and rather lihmt at the end. The younjr tree, for the first hundred vears or so, differs

considerably in ;i ppcara nct> fri-in t' mature trees. It u-u.illy »tart> I: • mi 'It* i" the ciner of tea-tree or nth , viUli and ~]| >><>t ~ Up »traigllt ,ir- .. Hl'rnw, giving off as it t side branches t<> carry the leav>*. ]:i c<nirst' of time these branches are ca-t off. leaving the clean, .»traight trunk I mentioned before. When the tiers are close together they often attain well over a hundred feet in height, with i|iiite small tops, hut when they have plenty of room very larje branching top- are developed, with correspondingly shorter trunks. A peculiarity of the older trees is that the bark is continually being cast off in large Hat flakes which accumulate in a mound about the base of the trunk. 'ibis continual shedding of the bark no doubt prevents the establishment of epiphytic growth which is •such a feature of our native bush, and so explains why the trunk* art always so clean. To reach their great size our kauri trees have taken a very lnn» time, consequently the kauri is generally looked on as a >low growing tree. As a result new kauris are not be in:: )ilanted to replace those cut out. Instead. quicker growing trees, which give inferior timber, are generallv used for afforestation purposes; but actually in it* first years of life the kauri shoots up quite rapidly and once it gets started in a favourable position will add one or two feet to its height every year. Any of you who would like to have a kauri in your garden will find that the seed germinates readily, or. if vou are careful, a very small :-eedling transplanted from a fairly open situation will usually do quite well. Select a fairly sheltered position with some shade and leave it plenty of room for future growth. Only this week I saw in an Auckland garden two fine trees, a kauri and a riinu, about six feet high and doing well. But they were not more than a foot apart, and before long one of them will have to be sacrificed in order to make room for the other.