540 Transactions. — Botany. 



Akt. LVII. — List of the Flowering Plants indigenous to 

 Otago, with Indications of their Distribution and Range 

 in Altitude. 



By D. Petrie, M.A., F.L.S. 



[Read before the Otago Instittite, 8th October, 1895.] 



The following list contains all the species of flowering plants 

 which I have gathered in Otago and Stewart Island in the 

 course of the last twenty years. In an appendix is given a 

 list of additional plants recorded from the district which I 

 have not myself observed in the field. 



My explorations have been mainly confined to the eastern, 

 central, and southern regions, the phanerogamic plants of 

 which may now be said to be fairly well known, except as 

 regards their distribution. The region lying to the west of 

 the Lake District and the south-west corner are still but im- 

 perfectly known, and its higher mountains will doubtless 

 yield a good many novelties to the adventurous collector who 

 penetrates into these rather inaccessible wilds. The plants of 

 the lowlands of the east and south are very much the same as 

 are found genenxlly in the lowlands of the eastern division of 

 the South Island. Those of the higher mountains of the 

 centre and north belong, with few exceptions, to the alpine 

 flora that prevails throughout the central and southern regions 

 of the Southern Alps. 



The higher plains of the interior bear a small number of 

 species that appear to be peculiar to these districts, but most 

 of them will no doubt be found sooner or later in similar 

 stations in the upper basins of the Canterbury rivers. Of this 

 kind are various species of CarmichcRlia, Acceua, Lepidium, 

 Baoulia, and Gar ex, and of Poa and Triodia among grasses. 



There is thus an unbroken continuity in the phanerogamic 

 flora of the central and southern regions of the South Island, 

 a fact in perfect keeping with their physical relations. The 

 great valley of the Waitaki Eiver hardly makes a greater 

 break in the eastern plateau and in the character of the flora 

 that flourishes on it tiian does any other of the great Canter- 

 bury rivers. 



The Clutha Valley, on the other hand, from Lake Wanaka 

 to Eoxburgh, forms an important boundary-line, for a good 

 number of the alpine plants found on the west of it do not 

 appear to extend to the mountains lying to the east. The 

 alpine plants, for example, found on the Dunstan Moun- 

 tains," the St. Bathan's Eange, and the Mount Ida and 

 Kurow Eanges, are in large measure different from the corre- 



