NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



with its pale-green leaves, and bears rather large rose-coloured flowers, 

 is a pleasing and familiar example (fig. 25). This species must not be 

 confused with the Hottentot fig (M. edule), a native of South Africa, 

 now naturalised on many sandhills, but which possesses leaves still 

 " fatter ' than those of its indigenous sister, and bears larger and 

 yellow-coloured flowers. Other common coastal succulents are : Sali- 

 cornia australis (fig. 26), a stem-succulent common in salt meadows, 

 and Suaeda maritima, - a leaf.-succulent, usually growing in rather 

 wetter ground. 



FIG. 25. The New Zealand Ice-plant (Mesembrianthera^tm anxtmle), growing on 



rock near sea. Lyall Bay, Wellington. 



[Photo. L. Cockayne. 



Succulence has been shown experimentally to be brought about 

 by excess of salt in the soil, and certain plants to which salt is not a 

 deadly poison can be made artificially succulent. Some of the intro- 

 duced plants of this country, as, e.y., the spotted catchny (Silan 

 anglica, var. quinquevulnera) , acquire much fatter leaves when growing 

 near the sea than inland. 



