Cockayne. — Botanical Excursion to Southern Islands. 263 



surface with bristly white hairs. The stems, 4:6 mm. in 

 diameter, are prostrate, but with the extremities ascending 

 and forming roundish tufts ± 16 cm. in diameter and 6 cm. 

 from the surface of the ground. The leaves are semi-patent, 

 and frequently recurved at their extremities, and dense enough 

 for one rosette to touch the next. A cross-section of a 

 leaf shows that it is dorsi-ventral, with a non-cuticularised 

 epidermis and large intercellular spaces in the spongy paren- 

 chyma. 



Genttaiia cerina has in winter rather dense rosettes, 

 crowded together, of dark-green imbricating leaves, the four 

 or five outer leaves much larger than those crowded in- 

 ternally. Each rosette is about 3"7 cm. in diameter. Such 

 a plant may measure 10 cm. x 8 cm. In spring the rosettes 

 open out and the new branches spread out radially, with their 

 tips ascending. 



Gotula plumosa, which is also found in Kerguelen Land, 

 has stout creeping stems 9 mm. in diameter, by which it 

 spreads over the surface of the ground. They are green 

 on the upper but paler on the under surface, and strongly 

 marked with old leaf-scars, the internodes being 4: 1-5 cm. 

 long. Rather stout, cord-like roots, furnished with fili- 

 form lateral rootlets, are given oiif from the nodes. Such 

 creeping stems may be quite without leaves for long dis- 

 tances, and serve both as storage and assimilating organs ; 

 in a collected plant 25 cm. were quite bare, but no mea- 

 surements were taken from growing plants. The leaves 

 in winter are in rosettes at the ends of the creeping stems. 

 The very young leaves in the centre of each rosette are 

 protected by a covering of long silky hairs. The leaves 

 have broad sheathing bases, fleshv in the centre and mem- 

 branous at the margin, tightly overlapping one another, and 

 this further protects the bud. In each winter rosette there 

 are only a few fully developed leaves. These are pinnate, 

 with the pinnae much divided, the whole leaf having a feathery 

 appearance, as the specific name implies. The upper side of 

 the leaflet-axis is furnished with about 7 segments — there are, 

 in fact, segments from base to apex ; but the lower side has 

 segments only near the apex. The segments also are only 

 divided on their outer side. By this arrangement the various 

 portions of the lamina hardly overlap at all. There is also a 

 gradual transition from pinnae without any lower segments to 

 those with 2-3 segments on the lower side, the two nearest 

 the base having no lower segments. Such a leaf as the above 

 measures 14-2 cm. ; the lamina 7"5 cm. x 4-3 cm.; the pinnae 

 1-8 cm. X 10 mm. The sheath is 3*5 cm. long x 5*5 cm. wide 

 (when spread out). The remainder of the petiole is stout, 

 almost flat on the upper and rounded on the under surface. 



