84 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE MEADOWS. 



European contrasted with New Zealand meadows The meadows of the 

 Dominion How meadows are formed by nature Valuable indigenous 

 grasses Flowers of the lowland pastures The mountain meadows- 

 Colours of the alpine flowers Buttercups, ourisias, yellow forget-me-nots 

 An alpine desert Drought-resisting contrivances Peat-forming plants. 



MEADOWS IN GENERAL.* 



WHEN the early settlers reached their antipodean home they must 

 have been struck by the absence of green fields gay with buttercups, 

 daisies, cuckoo-flowers, coltsfoot, and oxeyes, and would have laughed 

 at the idea of New Zealand meadows. To many, even yet, it may seem 

 absurd to compare the tussock slopes with the emerald hillsides oi 

 Britain. As for wild flowers, there are some who remember regretfully 

 those of the Motherland, and lament that their adopted home has 

 nothing to offer in exchange for the cowslips, primroses, anemones, 

 bluebells, and heather of their youthful days. 



Be all this as it may, New Zealand has plenty ot natural meadows 

 in a plant-geographical sense, if not in that of our boyhood. For 

 those who will seek them, too, it has also wild flowers that can vie 

 in beauty with those of any other region. 



Natural meadows are a distinct expression of climate and soil, 

 and, as stated in the first chapter, forest would cover the whole land 

 were there no inhibitory circumstances. Such, however, exist, the 

 most important being altitude, the nature of the soil, and climatic 

 influences, especially constant wind. The tussock meadows of the 

 Canterbury Plain, of the tableland near Mount Ruapehu, and of the 

 slopes of so many of our mountains are expressions of the above fact. 

 So, too, are the alpine meadows above the forest-line (fig. 38). 



* Plant-geographically our t- meadows " really belong to different biological 

 categories, such as steppe, fell-field, <. ; but, as these terms are by no means 

 clearly defined, I still use the term " meadow," as in my writings in general. 



