120 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



There yet remain for mention the Bounty Islands. So far as 

 plant-life goes, their description is easy. A few seaweeds are on the 

 rocks, while, where the sea cannot reach, the glitter of their monu- 

 mental granite is dimmed only here and there by the green stain 

 of an alga, their sole land plant. During part of the year these deso- 

 late rocks are a scene of busy life. Penguins in countless hosts 

 stand in close array from base to summit of the islands (fig. 55).* Fur- 

 seals bask on the warm rock, which everywhere by them and by the 

 feet of former penguins is polished smooth as glass. Here, too, the 

 mollymawk makes its curious nest of penguin-quills and guano, and 

 beneath the stones in this latter is teeming life of beetles, amphipods, 

 and spiders. 



THE CHATHAM ISLANDS AND THEIR PLANTS. 



At a distance of about five hundred miles from the coast of New 

 Zealand, and almost due east from Lyttelton, lie the Chathams. This 

 group has a flora quite as interesting as its subaiitarctic sisters, but, 

 owing in part perhaps to the milder climate and more northerly situ- 

 ation, of a different character. Subalpine meadows, fields of herbaceous 

 plants, rata forests all these are absent. A forest of another cha- 

 racter flourishes, distinct, too, from any other of New Zealand. The 

 trees have a very familiar appearance ; they look old friends, but are 

 somewhat different. Surely this is the well-known koromiko ; but 

 never did one see that as a tree 50 ft. in height. Here is the lancewood, 

 but where is the well-known juvenile form ? Here, too, is the korokia 

 of the north, yet its leaves seem larger and its yellow fruits bigger. 

 The truth is that long isolation from the mainland has, in some way 

 or another, led to slight differences between many Chatham Island 

 and New Zealand plants. They have certainly come from a parent 

 stock perhaps one or the other is the actual parent; but now, 

 although closely related, they are for the most part distinct species. 

 The lancewood is neither Pseudopanax crassi/oUum nor P. ferox it 

 is P. chathamica ; the koromiko is not Veronica salicifolia it is V. 

 (/if/anted : while the korokia is named Corokia macrocarpa, and in 

 its larger fruit and broader leaves is distinct from C. buddleoides of 

 the North Island. 



* The photo, represents a penguin colony on the Snares, not on the Bounties; 

 but the general effect is similar. 



