266 Transactions. — Botany. 



ous white hairs pressed close to the surface, and through 

 which the very dark-purple bark can be seen. Those 

 internodes nearest to the central portion of the stern are about 

 4 mm. in length, while those more adjacent to the apex are 

 of greater length. Although the majority of the leaves do 

 not vary to any great extent from those previously described 

 as " deeply toothed or pinnatifid," and figured in pi. xxx., 

 fig. 4, of the above-mentioned paper, yet some few show con- 

 siderable reduction of form. Such (fig. 1) are quite entire 

 except for a few obscure marginal teeth, and approximate 

 closely to the typical adult form of leaf. One exceptional 

 seedling has nearly all its leaves of this latter type. Between 

 the broad pinnatifid leaves (fig. 2) and the narrow almost entire 

 leaves intermediate forms occur, whose laminaB are 11mm. in 

 length, 4mm. broad for their basal half, and lTOmm. broad 

 for the apical half. Such a leaf resembles a juvenile leaf in 

 its lower and an adult leaf in its upper half. On page 363, 

 I.e., I pointed out some of the differences between the early 

 seedling and the adult leaves, at the same time suggesting 

 that the reduction, &c, of the latter had been caused by the 

 direct action of the environment on the plant in a state of 

 nature. During a recent botanical excursion in the Wai- 

 makariri district I made some observations which seem 

 directly confirmatory of the above-mentioned suggestion. 

 The following extract from my note-book describes a par- 

 ticular example, and was written at the place of observation, 

 a small patch of " bush" and its immediate environs on the 

 right-hand bank of the Eiver Waimakariri, just opposite the 

 mouth of its tributary the Eiver Hawdon, and where the 

 eastern and western climatic regions ::: merge into one another. 

 " Pittosporum rigidum. — Seedlings of this are most plentiful 

 under the beech -trees. They seem very similar to those 

 raised artificially. Under the shade of the beech-trees the 

 adult plants are of a loose habit, with erect twiggy branches 

 scarcely interlacing, but in the open, only a few metres away, 

 the whole plant forms a hard mass of rigid divaricating 

 branches so closely interwoven that wheu one branch is 

 pulled downwards the whole shrub is moved." From the 

 above we see that within the shelter of the forest, with its 

 accompanying conditions of more equable temperature, moister 

 atmosphere, much less bright illumination, rather wetter 

 ground, and, above all, comparative freedom from wind, the 

 adult plant is to all intents and-purposes of the juvenile form, 

 and so distinct in appearance from the plant growing under 

 xerophytic conditions in the open that it could easily be mis- 



* Cockayne, "A Sketch of the Plant Geography of the Waimakariri 

 liiver Basin " (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxxii., 1899, pp. 117 and 131). 



