122 



NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



are quite absent e.g., all the taxads. the beeches, the palm-lilies, and 

 the pittosporums. 



The despair of the settler and the delight of the flower-lover are the 

 very numerous bogs of the Chatham Islands. These are frequently 

 occupied by a close growth of the Chatham Island aster (Olearia 

 semidentata}, a truly lovely shrub in every respect (fig. 57). Covered 

 in the summer-time with flower-heads of the most intense purple, 

 these olearia shrubberies are an entrancing spectacle. Olearia 





. 57. Olearia semidentata in foreground ; Dracophyttum paludosum in back- 

 ground. Bog, Chatham Island. 



[Photo. L. Cockayne. 



chathamica is not so common, but occurs in quantity on the summits 

 of those precipitous cliffs forming the south coast of Chatham Island : 

 its flowers are white. Growing in company with 0. semidentata is 

 Dracophyttum paludosum, a needle-leaved shrub 3 ft. or 4 ft. tall, but 

 which, when growing on sphagnum, sometimes blooms when only an 

 inch or two high. 



In the neighbourhood of these olearia bogs the margin of the 

 forest often consists entirely of the rautini (Senecio Huntii], a mag- 



