For the most part their leaves are small, but their close neighbourhood hinders this from spoiling the effect.

The eye wanders over swell after swell, and into cavern after cavern of unbroken foliage.

To the botanist who enters them these silent, stately forests show such a wealth of intricate, tangled life, that the delighted examiner hardly knows which way to turn first.
[Illustration: A WESTERN ALPINE VALLEY Photo by MORRIS, Dunedin.] As a rule the lower part of the trunks is branchless; stems rise up like tall pillars in long colonnades.

But this does not mean that they are bare.

Climbing ferns, lichens, pendant grasses, air-plants, and orchids drape the columns.