Page:Rambles in New Zealand.djvu/30

 tree the Rimu is nearly allied; it is sweet, and eaten by the natives. The wood resembles in colour that of the apple-tree, and is brittle. It is one of the largest trees in the forest; as it becomes old, it loses its extraordinary beauty, the leaves shortening till they are mere scales. Next in abundance is the Miro, a tree exactly like the English yew, but bearing sweet berries about the size of horse-beans, with an internal seed. The wood is dark, fine-grained, rather soft, though harder than deal, and very tough. Its largest size is about two feet diameter. From its great beauty, it would well deserve to be grown in England; and as I have found it growing as high up the mountains as any other tree, I have no doubt it would be perfectly hardy. The largest tree I have seen in the country is very common in these woods, but is not peculiar to them, although in other than rich soil it never arrives at even the size of the cowrie. It has a soft white wood, and is always decayed in the middle; it exactly resembles the elm in leaf, and very much in growth and bark; but I could never succeed in procuring a specimen either in flower or seed. I have measured a tree thirty-seven feet in circumference; but such are rare; and were they more common, would be useless from the bad quality of the wood.

These are the chief trees in the richest description of dry woods, such as those I passed between Tawranga and Roturoa. The Rata, in my opinion the monarch of the New Zealand forest, is occasionally found very large in these woods, but prefers a more clayey and hilly soil. It is often sixty feet high without a branch, and from four to five feet in diameter; the wood is a fine pale brown, equal to mahogany in beauty, and African oak in hardness and durability; it is a first-rate