Regeneration in mature forest Sever

Regeneration in mature forest Several published accounts (Cheeseman 1914, Robbins 1957, Cockayne
1958, Bieleski 1959, Whitmore 1977) state that regeneration is scarce under groves of mature kauri,
but there is less agreement over the causes. Early writers (Cheeseman 1914, Cockayne 1958) suggested
that it was due to kauri being strongly lightdemanding as a seedling. But Bieleski (1959), from
field data and glasshouse experiments, has shown that seedling kauri are shade tolerant and wiII
survive at intensities as low as 2% of full daylight.He also found that the light in the Leptospermum
seral communities where kauri was regenerating was sometimes of even lower intensity than in the
mature forest. Robbins (1957) pointed out that it is still possible that kauri is light demanding at a later
growth stage.