Cockayne. — Plant Geography of the Waimakanri. 95 



Akt. XVII.— .4 Sketch of the Plant Geography of the Wai 

 makariri Biver Basin, considered chiefly from an CEco- 

 logical Point of View. 



By L. Cockayne. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 2nd August, 1899. 



Plates X.-XIII. 



Part I. : Introduction. 



Regarding New Zealand plant geography, nearly the whole 

 that has appeared up to the present time, especially in the 

 " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," has been of a 

 fioristic character. This, although of great importance to 

 science in general, and of especial interest, moreover, to New 

 Zealand botanists, does not meet the present-day demand by 

 biologists for more minute details regarding the environment 

 of plants and the adaptations to such that they have assumed. 

 Scattered through the writings just referred to are here and 

 there facts incidentally mentioned which bear on my subject. 

 Sir James Hector, in 1869,* selecting a portion of Otago, 

 arranged the plants into zones, determined by altitude, and 

 divided these into subdivisions according to the prevalence of 

 certain plants. He also illustrated the paper by means of an 

 excellent sectional map, showing at a glance the nature of the 

 plant-covering in that part of New Zealand. 



. Haast,t in 1864, pointed out the important fact that the 

 climate of central Canterbury was of a continental rather 

 than of an insular character. Various authors have divided 

 the plants into communities, of which those adopted from 

 Watson I are not to be commended — littoral, rupestral, and 

 the like ; indeed, when we examine the meaning of these 

 terms as given by Kirk§ it can readily be seen that from an 

 oecological point of view they have little value. Thus, littoral 

 plants are described as those of the seashore, whether grow- 

 ing on sandy or muddy beaches, in salt meadows, or on sea- 

 cliifs — stations truly which may offer very different life-con- 

 ditions. Certain papers, such as on the naturalised plants of 

 Port Nicholson, II on the fertilisation of plants, 1i on the dis- 



* " On the Geographical Botany of New Zealand," by Sir James 

 Hector (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. i.). 



t Report of the Geological Survey of the Province of Canterbury, 

 Christchurch, 1864, p. 23. 



I " Topographical Botany," 1883. 



§ "On the Botany of the Thames Goldfield " (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 

 vol. ii., p. 89). 



II T. Kirk, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 362. - 



H G. M. Thomson, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xiii., p. 291. 



