L. Cockayne. — Notes on New Zealand Floristic Botany. 169 



ation of the evidence available." More recently Cheeseman {Illustrations 

 of the N.Z. Flora, facing pi. 107) accepts C. albida as a species. 



With my views as to the relations of species and variety greatly changed 

 since 1906, I would now reverse my decision, were it not that both C. Vau- 

 villiersii and C. albida embrace more than one microspecies, and that if 

 the latter were reinstated as a variety of the former it would be necessary 

 to establish subvarieties in addition to varieties, so overburdening the 

 nomenclature. 



In Trans. N.Z. Inst., loc. cit., a var. canescens of Cassinia albida is defined 

 by me. This is distinguished from the type, to which the distinguishing 

 varietal name " tijpica " is here given,* by the leaf being so densely covered 

 on the upper surface with a mat of white hairs as to look as if powdered 

 with dust or mildew. 



Some time ago Professor A. Wall sent me living plants of both varieties. 

 These cultivated in my garden have put forth many young shoots, which 

 maintain their distinguishing varietal characters, though in var. canescens 

 the hoariness is somewhat less marked. Both varieties are confined to the 

 North-eastern Botanical District, but recent observations of Wall show 

 that possibly neither variety extends to its southern boundary. 



In addition to the two varieties dealt with above, Mr. Aston two years 

 ago collected in the Clarence Valley a variety of Cassina albida which is 

 woolly on the under-surface of the leaf and rather more hoary on the upper 

 surface than is var. canescens. But, as I have only the one specimen, I 

 merely call attention to this apparently distinct form. 



It is a matter of interest that on the Lord Auckland Islands the closely 

 related Cassinia Vauvilliersii (Homb. & Jacq.) Hook. f. is represented by 

 two varieties — viz., the type and one with a canescent upper surface to 

 the leaf. These characters are so striking that the two varieties can be 

 recognized at a distance.f 



30. Epilobium chloraefolium Hausskn. 



This extremely common subalpine species was first described by Hauss- 

 knecht in 1879 from dried material (Oestr. bot. Zeitschrift, vol. 29, p. 149). 

 Although, as Haussknecht points out, the species bears no resemblance to 

 E. rotundifolium Forst. f., the dried material which he examined in various 

 English herbaria showed him that it had been referred to the latter. But 

 long after Haussknecht's subjecting the New Zealand Epilobia to a searching 

 inquiry- -indeed, up to the publication of Kirk's Students' Flora in 1899 — 

 with but few exceptions, the New Zealand Epilobia, now known to number 

 at least thirty-eight species, J as well as some strongly marked varieties, 

 had been crammed into the Procrustean bed of Hooker's arrangement in 

 the Handbook, where but seventeen species were admitted. This summary 



* Cassinia albida (T. Kirk) Cockayne var. typica Cockayne var. nov. Foliis supra 

 pilis sparsissime obtectis. 



t See L. Cockayne, The Ecological Botany of the Subantarctic Islands of New 

 Zealand, The Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand, vol. 1, p. 216, 1909. 



| Since the publication of the twenty-eight species admitted by Cheeseman in the 

 Manual the following have been described either as new or "restored": Epilobium 

 antipodum Petrie, E. arcuatum Petrie, E. cinereum A. Rich, (to replace E. junceum Sol. 

 in part), E. Coclcaynianum Petrie, E. erectum Petrie (to replace E. junceum var. macro- 

 phyllum Hausskn.), E. hirtigerum A. Cunn. (to replace E. junceum var. hirtigerum), 

 E. nerterioides A. Cunn., E. pedunculare A. Cunn., E. rubra- marginatum Cockayne, 

 E. tasmanicum Hausskn. (the last two to replace E. confetiijolium Hook. f. so far as it 

 applied to plants other than those of the New Zealand Subantarctic Botanical Province). 



