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WHEN Europeans first saw New Zealand, a
dense forest, the home of countless thousands of
birds, covered about two-thirds of the
land. Many writers have tried to describe its richness, and painters
have vainly sought to express its subtle!
colour and rare beauty, Earle, an early
artist who; journeyed through
the forests of the north in 1827,
described them in these words:
'We travelled; through a wood
so thick that the light of heaven could not penetrate the trees that
composed it Not a gleam of sky was to
be seen. All was a mass of gigantic trees, straight and lofty, their
wide-f spreading branches mingling overhead and producing
throughout the forest an endless darkness and gloom.' In few other
countries had Nature! been more lavish with her gifts, for the flora of;
New Zealand included over fifteen
hundred species of flowers,
ferns, shrubs and trees.Although
the forest was evergreen, the monotony
of colour was relieved by a profusion of
flowering shrubs, creepers, and trees,
above which towered the forest giants. Chief among them was the
kauri, which often reach a height of 140 feet. Darwin, the great English
naturalist who visited New Zealand in 1835, spoke of 'the noble kauri
trees.' These were found only in the Auckland Province, but there were other
giants, like the totara, the rimu (red pine), the kahikatea (white pine),
the matai (black pine), and species of rata, which were found throughout the
country. Even on the higher mountain
ranges the vegetation was dense, for there the great beech forests
grew, especially in the South Island along the slopes
east of the Divide.
In general, New Zealand forest trees possessed long boles which tapered but
slightly. The trunks,
however, were not bare. Creepers, shrubs, and ferns
grew together in dense masses and were often bound together by climbing
plants, such as 'lawyers' and
supplejacks, which created so tangled an undergrowth that the virgin forest
was almost impassable. Almost
every hollow was crowded with lacy ferns, trailing creepers, and
graceful trees, every slope clothed with
a mass of luxuriant foliage. Such then was the leafy mantle that
covered old New Zealand.
In the North Island forest mosses and lichens
add to the beauty of the bush.
A bush scene from 'The New Zealanders (1847) |
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A rata sends it's enveloping roots
around and down a giant Rimu.
A scraper-board drawing of forest
depths.
A kauri from Crozet's 'Voyage' (1783),
where it is described as the tree which prevails most in all the forest.
Bush felling in Taranaki 1857,
from the original water colour painting by William Strutt. |
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