132 Transactions. — Botany. 



in the New Zealand Alps, Haast says"^' that in October he 

 had found by actual measurement 48 ft. of snow on Browning's 

 Pass, and further, on page 31, he writes, " It is difficult to 

 describe my astonishment when I looked down a frightful 

 goi'ge w'ith nearly vertical rocky walls about 800 ft. high. It 

 was on the snow which had filled up this precipice that we 

 had ascended five weeks previously. In estimating the alti- 

 tude of the slope where we thus travelled up from the gully 

 at 300 ft. I think I rather over- than under-estimated it. This 

 would leave 500ft. as the depth of snow in the gorge." At 

 the sources of the Bealey, the Poulter, and Nigger Creek every 

 year great masses of snow must accumulate, and also the ex- 

 tensive subalpine meadow flora just at the terminal face of 

 the Waimakariri Glacier must experience a tremendous pres- 

 sure from drifted snow. By the end of January (to continue 

 the account of observations on Arthur's Pass) a great deal of 

 snow had melted, the mountains were almost bare, but still 

 there remained a great depth at the head of the Bealey 

 Eiver, under the precipices of Mount Eolleston. The ther- 

 mometric records, which were not kept very regularly, maj' 

 be seen in the portion of this paper relating to meteorology ; 

 they show the great variations of temperature which occur 

 even in the middle of summer. During the time of excessive 

 north-west wind and rain described above the eastern climatic 

 plant-region was experiencing a great drought, whose effects 

 would be heightened by the constant hot drying winds, and 

 serious bush-iires raged in many parts of the Canterbury Dis- 

 trict, especially near Oxford. 



The south-west wind seems to exert a great influence on 

 the distribution of the vegetation in this region. The West- 

 land subalpine scrub never occurs where the full force of this 

 cold wind can strike it ; in such situations only Fagus forma- 

 tion exists. Thus the Dividing-range has on its eastern a 

 vegetation of an entirely different physiognomy to that on its 

 western face, and in some cases these two a^cologically dif- 

 ferent formations occur within a few metres of one another. 

 It is only in sheltered gorges or protected within the forest 

 that the peculiar Westland subalpine plants can live. At the 

 eastern base of Walker's Pass, in a moist sheltered hollow 

 into which two waterfalls descend, and protected com- 

 pletely from the south-west by a rocky wall, grows Scnccio 

 latifolius, a Westland hygrophyte. In sheltered places up 

 Punch-bowl Creek, Bealey Valley, is Dracophyllum iraversii, 

 and the solitary plant of Olearia lacunosa before mentioned 

 may be observed from the coach-road, sheltered in the forest 

 near the summit of Arthur's Pass. 



• Report on Head-waters of River Rakaia, Cbristcliuroh, 1886, p. 30. 



