A recheck of the beech quadrat in 1954 shows that while in 17 years the basal area of timber has remained constant, 42 per cent. of the trees have died. (A tally of visible stumps and dead trees in 1937 gave a similar rate of mortality over, say, the 20 preceding years.) Apart from a slight tendency for the smaller trees to be climinated, no pattern of mortality can be obtained. The opening of the canopy has commenced but is less advanced than elsewhere, and the floor is still substantially bare. Limited patches of beech seedlings, dating from about 1950, have made their appearance, and a variety of under shrubs were recorded in 1954. The mast year of 1955 has had little effect. Kiwi Saddle. Snow break in pole timber at a recent date has already been mentioned. On the ridge running north of this saddle to Castle Camp at the head of the Tutaekuri, mountain beech forest formerly extending to about the highest timber line, where it apparently consisted of gnarled, over-mature trees, has been burnt and replaced by a luxuriant cover of Poa caespitosa tussock. This succession has not been observed elsewhere. Manson Country. This isolated ridge also has been extensively burnt and is still grazed. Exposed crests up to 4,500ft in altitude are in many places eroded and bare of vegetation, while considerable areas of forest have been replaced partly by tussock, partly by Celmisia spectabilis. Introduced grasses are common below 4,000ft, in basins, and Leptospermum scrub or second-growth Nothofagus forest on the slopes. Hogget Block. This tussock plateau to the west of the Manson has affinities rather with the Ngamatea Plateau beyond the Taruarau River than with any portion of the Kaweka Range, and is included here merely for convenience. In spite of a long period of grazing and evidence of burning, it is still dominated by Danthonia rigida. Several volcanic plateau species, such as Cyathodes colensoi, Coprosma petrei, and Carmichaelia orbiculata, extend on to it from the Ngamatea Plateau. Area 4. Southern Kaweka The Blowhard Plateau, together with the foothills lying to the north of it and the broken country to the west of it between the Kaweka and Ruahine Ranges, are at the present day a uniform area of manuka scrub with scattered islands of forest, only two of which, the Black Birch and Boyd's Bush, are of any considerable extent. Most of the manuka scrub is fire induced; the earliest description (Colenso, 1851, 1852) speaks of Pteridium fern land, with subalpine scrub and open ground on the more exposed ridges. The chief problem, and one that has so far proved insoluble, is to account for any such pre-European vegetation pattern. The prevalence of Pteridium fern and the pattern of forest islands suggest a succession following destruction of forest, but no evidence of this is forthcoming, while the Blowhard soils indicate that tussock grass or scrub has been the dominant cover there over a long period. Most of the area lies between 2,000ft and 3,000ft, and the common element in the forest islands is the presence of podocarps as scattered trees or pockets in beech forest, usually mountain beech but occasionally red beech being dominant. One small island, the Blowhard Bush, is exceptional in being podocarp-broadleaf forest, but early station diaries mention several additional islands of podocarps which were utilized or perhaps burnt at an early date, most of the locations being now lost. The former State Forest 23, an 800-acre strip in the Ngaruroro valley, may fall into this category as there is one early account of matai forest in that locality of which no trace is now visible. Most of the lost islands are reported as matai (Podocarpus spicatus), but at the present day the most common species are the thin-bark totara (P. hallii) and rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) with occasional matai and kahikatea (Podocarpus