28 Transactions. 



leaves, and this by the simple- and thicker-leaved adult. In some localities 

 the much-cut form is suppressed to some extent, or almost entirely absent 

 (Auckland Islands ; but see Cockayne, 1904, p. 249,* and pi. 11). The 

 closely related Nothopanax parvum Cockayne also seems to lack a cut- 

 leaved stage. N. anomalum Seem., although frequently a forest-plant, 

 has a juvenile mesophytic form with small ternate leaves and an adult 

 divaricating shrub form connecting the ternate-leaved form of the genus 

 with the divaricating shrubs. 



(5.) In this class come a considerable number of plants which cannot 

 with any confidence be referred in their different stages to special outer 

 factors. Take the case of certain species of Pseudopanax (Araliac.) : two 

 (P. crassifolium C. Koch and P. ferox T. Kirk) have the curious narrow 

 deflexed juvenile leaves and unbranched stem, but in P. lineare C. Koch, 

 a subalpine shrub, the virtually similar juvenile leaves are erect ; and in 

 P. chathamicum T. Kirk they are wanting altogether, the juvenile and 

 adult leaves not being very different. 



The primary seedling leaves of P. crassifolium are somewhat similar in 

 form to the adult, but, of course, much smaller. They are erect, and never 

 deflexed. P. ferox, on the contrary, commences with narrow-linear toothed 

 leaves of the second stage, which are not erect, but horizontal for a time. 



The small-leaved juvenile and the large-leaved adult forms of the root- 

 climbing fern Blechnum filiforme Ettingsh. cannot be explained ephar- 

 monically, though there probably is, or has been, some relation of the sort, 

 since the first-named is the common ground form (creeping form) and the 

 large-leaved the climbing form. Nor can I suggest any explanation of the 

 two juvenile leaf-forms of Parsonsia heterophylla and P. capsularis R. Br. 

 (see fig. 2). In the former species the long narrow-leaved shoots occasion- 

 ally flower, and in the latter there is a fixed flowering juvenile race occur- 

 ring in the uplands of the South Island which I consider a distinct species. 



Weinmannia racemosa L. f. and W. sylvicola Sol. (Cunoniac.) are two 

 closely related species whose flowers are virtually identical, and which 

 differ merely in the adult leaf of the first-named being entire and of the 

 other compound. The early seedlings of both are identical ; they are 

 erect, their leaves are simple, toothed, thin, and hairy. Then comes a second 

 stage, in which in W. racemosa the leaves are ternate, and in W. sylvicola 

 both ternate or pinnate. At this stage, when both plants are merely bushy 

 shrubs, they can flower, and need not develop into trees. Frequently on 

 the heath lands of northern Auckland W. sylvicola attains 3-4 m. in height ; 

 the leaves are large, and have many leaflets, yellowish in colour, and 

 although Mr. H. Carse, myself, and others have seen hundreds of these tall 

 juvenile plants we have never seen them in flower. Ackama rosaefolia 

 A. Cunn. (Cunon.), if not actually a companion plant, grows near by on 

 the forest's outskirts, &c, and its adult form so much resembles this juvenile 

 Weinmannia that no one could distinguish flowerless examples one from 

 the other without a knowledge of certain quite obscure differences. f The 

 adults of the two species of Weinmannia are lofty forest-trees. From the 

 above it seems reasonable to conclude that W . sylvicola is merely a fixed 



* Through a clerical error " eutire-leaved " is printed several times instead of " simple 

 leaves." The leaves are more or less serrate, but compared with the juvenile they are 

 virtually " entire." 



f The distinctions given by Kirk in the "Forest Flora," p. 113, do not hold in 

 practice, so far as the leaf is concerned. 



