Cockayne. — Botanical, Excursion to Southern Islands. 253 



bark. The ultimate branches divide into several short 

 branches radiating upwards and outwards after the manner 

 of Olearia chathamica of Chatham Island (2,3, p. 298), 

 0. operina of the west coast sounds, or Rhododendron jjonti- 

 cuvi, so common in gardens, finally giving off from near their 

 extremities numerous large leaves, which form a dense mass. 

 These leaves are thick and coriaceous, their laminae + 20'5 cm. 

 X + 13-5 cm., and provided with a short stout petiole ex- 

 panded and sheathing at the base. The upper surface is 

 dark-green, varnished and quite glabrous except at the mar- 

 gins and on the broad midrib. The under-surface is densely 

 clothed with flannelly tomentum quite white in colour. This 

 tomentum is rather more than half the thickness of the leaf- 

 substance proper. The midrib on the under-surface of the 

 leaf is excessively stout, measuring at the base 9 mm. x 4 mm. 

 The young leaf, just when it is unfolded from the bud, is white 

 and soft like a piece of flannel, being extremely tomentose 

 on both surfaces. The ultimate shoot-axes are 1-5 cm. in 

 diameter, and densely covered with white tomentum similar 

 to that of the leaf. Shade-leaves are rather larger than sun- 

 leaves, and have the veins less prominent. A cross-section of 

 the leaf shows a large-celled epidermis on the upper surface, 

 having the outer wall but little thicker than the inner walls. 

 There is a dense palisade parenchyma with water tissue 

 extending in places into it from the epidermis. Eound the 

 vascular bundle is a stereome sheath which extends to the 

 upper epidermis, while on its under-surface is a large-celled 

 water tissue. On the under-surface are a number of glandular 

 hairs. 



In the forest of Bwing Island trees with prostrate trunks 

 are very much more common than those whose trunks are 

 erect. As a rule, indeed, more than half the trunk is pros- 

 trate upon the ground. Kirk thus describes Olearia lyalln as 

 it grows on the Snares (56, p. 215), "When growing in level 

 situations it is erect, with open spreading branches, but when 

 growing on slopes exposed to the wind it is often inclined or 

 with a prostrate trunk, the roots partly torn out of the soil ; 

 and the branches, rooting at the tips, give rise to new trunks, 

 which in their turn are brought to the ground and repeat the 

 process." As for the plants on Ewing Island, Kirk writes 

 (56, p. 219), " Most of thein are erect and well grown, but a 

 few exhibit the inclined position so frequent on the Snares." 

 Chapman thus describes the behaviour of 0. lyallii on the 

 Snares: "When this" [0. lyallii] "grows a certain height 

 it falls down with the weight of the leaves and the pressure 

 of the wind and takes root where it touches ground ; then it 

 grows upwards again, and after a while it falls again, tearing 

 its oldest roots up and rooting itself a third time : thus the 



