NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



South America, and must either have come thence to New Zealand, 

 or have reached both these regions from the old problematical con- 

 tinent of the south. 



Besides the kowhai, a number of other species are common to 

 New Zealand and Fuegia. The following are some of the more 

 important : Veronica ettiptica, a shrubby speedwell, confined to the 

 coast of the South Island, to one locality north of Cook Strait, and 

 to the New Zealand subantarctic islands ; Crassula moschata, 

 a rather small succulent plant with red stems, common on many 

 parts of the South Island coast, Stewart Island, the subantarctic 

 islands, and Chatham Island ; 

 Colobanthus quitensis, a tiny 

 plant of the pink family, oc- 

 curring in some parts of the 

 South Island mountains ; Cori- 

 aria ruscifoUa, the tutu ; Geum 

 parviflorum, a pretty white- 

 flowered plant of the subalpine 

 and alpine region ; Luzuriaga 

 marginata (fig. 3), a beautiful 

 little plant, growing amongst 

 moss in forests, and bearing a 

 large white berry, found at 

 sea-level in Southland, Stewart 

 Island, and Westland, but only 

 in subalpine forests in the North 

 Island ; two small species of 

 rush, Juncus scheuzerioides and 

 J. novae-zelandiae ; one of the 

 wood-rushes, Luzula racemosa ; 

 two sedges. Carex Darwini var. 

 urolepsis, which up to the present has only been recorded from 

 Chatham Island, and one of large size, C. trifida. 



Oxalis magellamca, a pretty white wood-sorrel, occurs : : n New 

 Zealand, South America, and East Australia. A number of other 

 plants are so closely related as to be virtually common to these 

 three regions. Finally, Macquarie Island is an interesting case, since 

 no fewer than thirteen of its twenty-eight species of ferns and 

 flowering-plants belong to South America or to the chain of distant 

 subantarctic islands. 



FIG. 3. Luzuriaga marginata. Common 

 to New Zealand and subantarctic 

 South America. 



[Photo, J. Crosby-Smith. 



