124 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



seaweed marks the high-tide limit. The massive, shining, broad, 

 green leaf-blades, a foot or more in length, raised high from the ground 

 on stout leaf-stalks, and the numerous blue flowers, each half an inch 

 or so in diameter, render this plant a most conspicuous object. The 

 seeds germinate rapidly if fresh, and seedlings are raised with the 

 greatest ease. The writer has long thought this noble plant might 

 easily be naturalised on our northern sea-shores for instance, on the 

 Little Barrier and on Kapiti. Surely some effort could be made to 

 fence a piece of the Chatham Island shore from sheep and pigs, so that 

 this rare and interesting plant could once more reassert itself in its 

 natural station. 



Other interesting Chatham Island plants are the mutton-bird plant 

 (Cotula Feather stonii), which grows only near the holes of the petrels ; 

 the shrubby speedwells, Veronica Dieffenbachii, V. Barkeri, and 

 V. chathamica, this latter a charming little plant, of which there are 

 many distinct forms, which creeps over rocks close to the sea ; the 

 great sowthistle (Sonchus grandifolius), which grows on sand-covered 

 ledges of rock near the sea, or at times on the dunes ; the bog-grass. 

 Poa chathamica, an important fodder plant ; the Chatham Island 

 cranesbill (Geranium Traversii), of which there are white and pink 

 varieties ; the swamp- matipo, Suttonia Coxii, with its pretty mauve 

 fruits ; the gentian, Gentiana chathamica ; and two spear-grasses, 

 Aciphylla Dieffenbachii and A. Traversii. 



Settlement has in many places quite changed the face of the 

 country. In some places are fine grass paddocks, in others the 

 bracken-fern and the piripiri (Acaena novae-zealandiae) have become 

 weeds. Phormium tenax was originally very common, but is now a 

 thing of the past in most cases. The Chatham Island variety differs 

 from any in New Zealand proper in its broad and rather drooping 

 leaves and their weak fibre. 



THE KERMADECS. 



Science is especially indebted to Mr. T. F. Cheeseman. F.L.S..* 

 for a knowledge of the most northern members of the New Zealand 

 biological region, the Kermadec Islands. As the writer has not had 



* Recently, Mr. W. R. B. Oliver, of Christchurch, spent, with some com- 

 panions, nearly a year on the island, and has in Trans. X.X. Inst., Vol. xlii, a full 

 account of the plant-covering. 



