120 Transactions. — Botany. 



Besides these many other instances could be quoted of bog 

 plants or those of very wee stations growing on dry ground.- 

 The stony character of the ground, with a gravelly subsoil at a 

 greater or lesser depth (see Plate Xlil.), has been mentioned 

 when treating of the topography of this region. On the 

 mountains clayey loam is often found, varying much m its 

 percentage of clay ; also very stiff clay is met with, but always 

 underlain by rocky debris, and so subject to rapid desiccation. 

 In addition to these are characteristic xerophilous stations, 

 such as rocks, stony river-beds, salt meadows, sandhills, and 

 shingle-slips. The rivers, as pointed out before, flow in beds 

 often deep down below the surroundmg country, much of 

 which consists of steep slopes, so that every facility is pro- 

 vided for natural drainage. 



To support a luxuriant vegetation in such a region would 

 require a moist atmosphere and a considerable rainfall. On 

 the contrary, the rainfall on the plains near the sea is little 

 more than 20 in., increasing, of course, as the hills are neared ; 

 on the alpine heights and at the north and west boundaries 

 it is much greater still, but possibly decreasing to below that of 

 Christchurch, in the Trelissick basin. In addition to this the 

 wind is nearly always blowing, sometimes a violent, hot, dry 

 nor'-wester, sometimes a cold, dry sou'-wester, at other times 

 a steady, drying, east or north-east wind. The sun, too, is 

 hot in summer, and cloudless days prevail. In winter clear 

 frostless days with warm sunshine are common. Excessive 

 weather, too, is not unknown ; two periods of drought have 

 occurred during the past ten years. In 1895 the snow lay 

 near the sea for more than a week, and skating on ice was 

 possible in that neighbourhood, while on the table-land and 

 the mountains the snow lay for many weeks longer than its 

 average period. This winter of 1899 has been specially re- 

 ferred to in deahng with the meteorology, but other periods of 

 cold almost as great have occurred during the past twenty 

 years. 



Low-lying hollows in the alpine region are filled with water 

 one month and dry the next. The stones on shingle-slips 

 become so hot that it is unpleasant to touch them with the 

 hand, while the night of that same day may witness a frost. 

 In such a station the plants are often frozen quite hard before 

 being protected by their winter covering of snow, and while 

 in this state are exposed to drying winds. Some plants, again, 

 grow in stations where the winter snow can never protect 



* See also Goebcl, " Pflanzenbiologische Schilderungen," zweiter 

 teil, Marburg, 1891, pp. 46, 47, where ho quotes certain plants which 

 are found in Germany in bogs, but in the arctic regions on dry hills; 

 and species of Espclctia, in the Venezuelan Andes, grow both in marshes 

 and on rocks. 



