Art. XXXV.—On the Regrowth of the Totara. By Joshua Rutland. [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 16th October, 1900.] Of the four trees—kahikatea, matai, totara, and rimu—on which the sawmills of the Pelorus have been mainly dependent since the establishment of the timber industry in the district the totara was by far the scarcest, yielding probably not more than 1 per cent of the sawn timber produced; yet of all the Coniferæ occurring in the Pelorus the totara was the most generally distributed. Dividing the land into three classes, hill-sides, level terraces, and alluvial flats, to the terraces and flats the kahikatea and matai chiefly belong, the former growing in the damper and swampy portions of the ground, the latter on drier soil. The rimu was restricted to the hills and terraces, the totara being scattered over the three descriptions of land without displaying a decided preference for any. On steep hill-sides, on the stony soil of the terraces, and on the rich alluvial land it attained dimensions which entitled it to be considered “king of the forest.” On the shores of the Pelorus Sound, where the vegetation was especially vigorous, keikei, supplejack, and other climbing plants converting the forest in many places into an almost impenetrable jungle, the totara was extremely scarce. In the Rai Valley, where, owing to the scarcity of climbers, the bush is comparatively open, the totara is most abundant. Along the summits of the ranges inland and bordering the Sound there still is in many places a narrow but almost continuous belt of the mountain totara, the Podocarpus hallii of the late Mr. T. Kirk. Looking back to the sixties, on the abandoned Maori clearings, which occupied most of the alluvial land in the lower Pelorus Valley, there were numbers of young totara-trees from 12 in. to 15 in. in diameter down to mere rods, standing singly or in clumps, and forming a conspicuous and very attractive feature in the vegetation of the partly open land. Within the shade of the adjacent forest small totara-trees were scarce; in addition to the giants already referred to, trees of useful size and saplings were dotted about, generally singly and far apart. In swampy places the kahikatea monopolized the ground, on the better-drained alluvial land matai predominated, and on the hilly land rimu occupied extensive areas; but, excepting the narrow belts of mountain totara, the young trees on