164 



NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



their study is of the highest economic importance, and plant patho- 

 logists are employed by 'all progressive countries. One example of a 

 New Zealand fungus must suffice. In the Nothofagus forests the boles 

 of the larger tiees are covered in many instances with a thick coating 

 of a coal-black hue, which gives the trunks the appearance of having 

 been plastered thickly with soot, and tends to enhance the gloomy 

 character of the interior of these forests. This coating consists of a 

 fungus, Antennaria by name, which is especially interesting from the 

 manner in which it gets its food-supply. Antennaria belongs to the 





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. 6f5. The Umbrella -fern (Gleichenia Cunninghamii). 



Lands Department.] 



[Photo, L. Cockayne. 



group of " honey-dew fungi," so named because, they utilise as food 

 the exudation excreted by certain insects. If a, piece of the plant be 

 examined carefully, there will be found imbedded in its interior 

 numerous reddish insects somewhat resembling tiny wood-lice, sur- 

 rounded with white fluffy material like cotton-wool. These are scale- 

 insects related to the well-known Coccus cacti, from which the colour- 

 ing-matter cochineal is made. This beech-coccus exudes considerable 

 quantities of a sweet sticky fluid, on which the black fungus feeds; 



