266 Transactions. — Botany. 



of many other antarctic cushion-plants. Coprosma repens 

 covers the wet ground with its rather succulent prostrate 

 stems and small green leaves, and the needle-leaved Cyathodes 

 empetrifolia is very common. Growing associated with the 

 above are patches of Astelia linearis subulata, the short, stiff, 

 vertical, green portion of the leaf rising above the ground for 

 about 11 mm. This plant spreads into large colonies by 

 means of its long wiry stems, which creep just beneath the 

 surface of the ground. These stems are covered thickly with 

 old decayed leaf-sheaths, and with these and the roots form 

 extremely dense mats 3 cm. or more in depth. The stem 

 proper is marked with old leaf-scars, and measures only 

 1-5 cm. or less in diameter. Just before issuing from the 

 ground the stem branches into two or three leafy shoots, each 

 furnished with 2-3 green leaves. Such leafy shoots, being 

 quite close, form a rather dense turf. The leaves are ± 2-1 cm. 

 long, and consist of a pale-coloured sheathing base, which is 

 rather longer than the vertical oi- semi-vertical shining green 

 subulate lamina. There are a few hairs on the sheath and 

 occasionally at the base of the lamina, otherwise the green 

 portion of the leaf is quite glabrous. The assimilating tissue 

 consists of round cells close together, except on the upper 

 surface, where this tissue is broken into by a rather broad 

 layer of large-celled water tissue reaching to the centre of the 

 leaf. The epidermis is moderately cuticularised, and the 

 stomata are just below the cuticle. This plant differs very 

 considerably from the type, which is altogether larger in all its 

 parts and has leaf laminae, linear, 5-4 cm. long x 5 mm. broad, 

 coriaceous, so bent upwards as to make a channel on the upper 

 surface of the leaf, and the midrib and edge of leaf covered 

 with adpressed brown chaffy hairs. The rhizome is also 

 much stouter and more densely clothed with decayed leaves. 

 Mixed up with the above-mentioned plants are various mosses, 

 liverworts, and lichens, which find a suitable habitat on the 

 wet soil, very conspicuous being the beautiful white masses of 

 Cladonia retipora ov an allied species. Growing tlirough 

 the carpet of Cop. repens or forming large patches to itself is 

 the filmy fern HymenopJii/Uuvc muitifidum, a striking testi- 

 mony to the constant moisture of the atmosphere. Grow- 

 ing in this situation it has altogether a difi'erent habit to 

 that which it bears as a forest plant. From the slender 

 wiry rhizome creeping amongst the mosses or turf pass up- 

 wards numerous erect very dark-brown wiry stipes from 

 2-9 cm. to 5 mm. in length. The dark-green leaves, which 

 look almost black from the dark colour of the midribs, arch 

 downwards parallel with the erect stipes, and may bury their 

 apical portion or even more amongst the accompanying 

 mosses. The pinnao likewise are curved vertically downwards, 



