104 Transactions. — Botany. 



Meteorology. 



I have purposely kept back the pubhcation of a number 

 of details shown in the various meteorological tables, which 

 have been issued from time to time by the Colonial Museum 

 and Survey Department under the direction of Sir James 

 Hector, F.E.S., until treating specifically of the plant-forma- 

 tions of each region. Of these tables we need only consider 

 those of Hokitika, Bealey, Christchurch, and Lincoln. These 

 are, of course, so far as they go, of considerable value for a 

 consideration of the effect of the climate of those stations on 

 the plants in their immediate vicinity. Hokitika, however, is 

 not in the district under consideration, and its statistics are 

 only quoted so that some inference can be drav^^n therefrom as 

 to the rainfall on the dividing-range. Lincoln also is not in 

 this district, and, although only a few miles distant from 

 Christchurch, it has, as pointed out by Mr. Meeson,''' a rain- 

 fall of 2 in. or 3 in. greater than the latter locality. As for 

 Christchurch, observations taken in a town, with shelter from 

 houses and smoke, do not give any good criterion from which 

 to estimate the temperature of the surrounding country. The 

 details from Bealey, on account of its almost subalpine situa- 

 tion, at no great distance from glaciers of considerable size, 

 receiving as it does a large portion, at any rate, of the great 

 western rainfall, are by far the most valuable for plant oecology. 



From the above considerations it is abundantly evident 

 that our data as to the climate of the region under considera- 

 tion are not very satisfactory. According to Schimperi there 

 should be given for each month of the year the mean maxi- 

 mum and the mean minimum temperature, the rainfall and 

 the number of rainy days, the mean maximum amount of 

 moisture in the air and the mean minimum, the hours of 

 sunshine, the force of the wind, and the evaporation. 

 But should the meteorological records of any station be 

 of the greatest accuracy and voluminousness, they would 

 only furnish a most general idea of the climatic influences to 

 which a plant is subjected. The side of a gully without sun- 

 shine at all during winter — to quote an extreme but quite 

 common case — which even in midsummer receives but a 

 scanty supply compared with the opposite side, and which 

 during the slight frosts of early April remains frozen hard 

 all day, presents an altogether different plant-station to the 

 sunny side. Particular instances of this will be cited, and the 

 differences in vegetation presented by two such sides will be 

 seen to be quite remarkable. 



• " On the Rainfall of New Zealand," Trane. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiii., 

 p. 54G. 



t " Pflanzen-Geographie auf Pliv?iologische Grundlage," Jena, 1898, 

 p. 190. 



