| Kauri
Pine, New Zealand |
Robert
Van Pelt |
| Jul
29, 2002 |
Sent:
Monday, July 29, 2002 10:02 AM
Subject: Back
Greetings,
Kathy and I have just returned from New Zealand, and I must
say that if the
Pacific Northwest wasn't so nice I would be moving there. As
it was winter,
we stuck to the North Island. Even so, it was still t-shirt or
sweater
weather, which was nice. All of the native forests are
completely dominated
by conifers, and all are protected. There is no longer cutting
of native
forests allowed!
I brought my lasers, both big and small, to see how their
trees 'measured
up'. The giant Kauri, for example, has long been in question
(in my mind,
at least) as to whether it was larger than western red cedar
or not for the
title of the earth's 3rd largest tree. Based on the different
architecture,
I had to figure out how to measure branches from the ground.
Fortunately,
the Kauris have only a few branches, even though they are
quite large (3-6
feet in diameter). It took me quite a while to measure given
also that the
brush there is incredibly dense. All of the shrubs, ferns and
trees are
evergreen (one fern measured 58'!). The largest tree I
measured ended up
with 18, 250 cubic feet, including branches. This is larger
than the 17,
650 cubes I got for our largest cedar, without branches. The
Quinault Lake
Cedar, however, does not have many branches, so I doubt if
even these were
included it would surpass the Kauri. However, I am certain
that both of
these trees can be beat by others of their species, as large
unexplored
areas of forest exist in both locations.
There are three other giant conifers in New Zealand, all from
the
Podocarpaceae. These three are all in the 5-8K volume class,
comparing
favorably with our other giant cedars, Incense, Yellow, and
Port Orford.
These also grow in large tracks of forest that are poorly
explored.
Needless to say, this was the first of many trips to this
great country.
The bad news is that they do not know how to measure trees.
Signs posted in
from of some of their famous trees were off by 15 - 35 feet
for height. All
of their conifers have architecture different from the typical
'ideal'
conifer, so that these errors are due to the same reasons you
guys find so
often in your forests.
I fell in love with this place, and not want to return home
(which has not
happened to me before). Culturally, they are ahead of
Australia, having
excellent coffee, good beer, and great restaurants.
Cheers,
- BVP |
|