
This was the tree that I nearly walked right past. I was
paying
so
close attention to what was beneath my feet that I really didn't notice
what was above my head. This tree had such a
presence.
It
wasn't even close to being the biggest of the
kauris, but it
was
among the most beautiful. The kauris are a bit different than
a
lot
of trees. They don't taper very much from the base to where
the
branches
begin. If you look at the massive redwoods of California, the
diameter
of the trunk where the branches begins might be half the diameter of
the
base. Not so with the kauris. While they might be
smaller
at
the base, they have almost as much mass as many of the redwoods.