Laixo. — Vef/cfafion of Bankx I'linnnida. 



Art. XXXn'. — The Vegetation of Banks Peninsula, unfh a List of 

 Species ( Floicering-plants and Ferns). 



By Robert \i. Laing, B.Sc. 



{Read before the Sen- Zealand I nstilute, at Christchiirrh. 4lh-8th February. 1U19 : 

 received by Editor, 2nd Ajiril. I'.IJU. issued -separafeli/. Wth Anipisl. 19]f).] 



The Indigenous Vegetation of Banks Peninsula. 



Physiographic. 



Banks Peninsula, on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, 

 is such a well-defined and isolated area that it is remarkable that it has not 

 received more attention from botanists. The list of papers at the end of 

 this article shows how scanty has been the botanical work done on this 

 group of hills. Indeed, there is at present no reliable list of the species 

 occurring there. This is the more to be regretted as no portion of the 

 area except the coastal cliffs and the salt marsh now remains in its original 

 condition : and no doubt even on the cliffs some introduced species of plants 

 are to be found. The complete destruction of the forest and the annual 

 burning of the tussock areas have so altered the plant associations that it is 

 difficult to reconstruct them, even in imagination, with accuracy. Some 

 species are now undoubtedly lost, man)" more have been introduced from 

 without, and the relative numbers of those present have been, of course, 

 totally reproportioned. Any attempt to describe in detail the distribution 

 of species over the area before the arrival of the white man must of necessity 

 fail, but the rough outlines of that distribution can still be determined. 



The following paper therefore attempts to give that information, and 

 to provide a list of the indigenous species that should be useful to 

 future .students of the area. It is not necessary to describe the chief 

 physiographic features of the area, as this has already been done in 

 the papers of von Haast. Hutton, and Speight, which are readily 

 accessible. Suffice it to say that Banks Peninsula stretches out to the 

 south-east from the centre of the eastern side of the Canterbury Plains. 

 It is oval in shape, and about thirty-five miles long and twenty 

 wide. It consists of a congeries of hills rising at the centre in Mount 

 Herbert to a height of just over 3,000 ft, and in Mounts Sinclair and 

 Fitzgerald to a slightly less height. From these and other peaks long 

 ridges with steep sides run out in all directions, enclosing occasionally 

 narrow flat*^ containing several hundred acres of land. Beyond the flats 

 and between the outer ridges are the smaller bays. On the seaward side 

 the ridges terminate in cliffs 300 ft. to 500 ft. high ; and on the landward 

 side slope down to the plains, cliffs being absent. Two large harbours, on 

 the sites of old volcanic calderas, break into the hills, and are surrounded 

 by steep walls which rise in rocky cliffs and escarpments to the height of 

 2,000 ft. in Akaroa Harbour, and somewhat less in Lyttelton Harbour. 

 The longest valleys are the Little River and Kaituna Valleys, each some 

 seven miles in length, both at one time, throughout part at least of their 

 lengths, arms of the sea. To the south-west lies a large, shallow, brackish 

 mere — Ellesraere — formed by the blocking-up of the mouth of the Selwyn 

 River. This action is due to the shingle drifted u\) the coast from the 

 mouth of the Rakaia River by the southern current. 



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