97 



Notes on the Vegetation of the Middle Island of New Zealand, 

 chiefly in the neighbourhood of Nelson, extracted from Letters written 

 to the Editor hy Dr. David Monko, of Nelson. 



Two or three times in the course of the year I make a journey from 

 this place (the Waimea), where I reside, to the Wairau, nearly one hun- 

 dred miles distant by the bridle-path, though probably not above thirty 

 in a straight line. For about forty miles I proceed in a southerly 

 direction over a country of comparatively low level, though of very un- 

 even surface, composed of ridges divided by steep and narrow valleys, 

 and uniformly covered with moderately high Fern. In proceeding 

 across this country we are, generally speaking, obliged to keep the 

 summit of a ridge and follow it in its different windings. The vegeta- 

 tion in this tract of country is poor and very little varied : in the 

 bottoms of the valleys and about the brooks tliere is some variety of 

 shrubs, but the hills are possessed by Fern to the exclusion of almost 

 everything else. Asmall species of P/^crw^^^//?^* grows upon the ridges here, 

 part of the flower of which, I forget now whether the calyx or corolla, 

 IS green, and not dark red as in the larger variety. Another plant is 

 very common, which from a bunch of sword-shaped leaves sends u]^ a 

 stalk about a foot high, bearing a white daisy-like flower about the 

 ■Size of a crown-piece : the native name of this plant is " Toocurae."t 

 From the under surface of the leaf a cuticle strips off which has a strong 

 resemblance to fine white kid-leather. This the natives of the South 

 twist into yarn, making fishing-lines of it; and I have also seen this 

 yarn woven into a soft and warm cloth, with which an excellent pair 

 of leggings was made. A few shrubs are also met with about these 

 ridges, some of them showy when in flower, but as my friend Mr. 

 J^idwill has been over the ground, it is not likely that I shall find 

 much that is new. Having travelled about forty miles in a southerly 

 direction, I enter the Wairau Pass : this is a deep cleft in the moun- 

 tain-chain which has been on my left, and which, interrupted only by 

 this pass, continues its southerly bearing and joins the alpine ridges 

 about the lakes Eotuiti and Kotueva, upon which the snow never 

 oielts. The pass is^ten miles through and woorled from end to end. 

 The trees are uniformly what the colonists call UlackBirchJ (Beeches, 



F 



* P. tenax, var. &, Banks et Sol, t Probably Celmisia coriacea, H.f. 



X Fagtcsfusca, H.f. 



VOL. VIII. ^' 



