Cockayne. — Plants of Chatham Island. 'Ill 



seed was hard and apparently sound. I gave it to Mr. Hunt, 

 who sowed it, but I have not yet heard the result." This 

 statement of Travers's has seemed so reasonable that Mr. 

 Hemsley writes of "the doubtful occurrence" of Sophora in 

 the Chatham Islands (28). That S. chithamica is indigenous 

 in Chatham Island there can, however, be no doubt. Even if, 

 unaided by man in any way, it had arrived a few years before 

 Mr. Travers's visit it would have bef-.n indigenous, of course; 

 but it has probably occupied Chatham Island since that land 

 was first colonised by its arborescent plant inhabitants. It 

 occurs abundantly in all the small woods along the lagoon, 

 and in quite as great a proportion as the other trees. More- 

 over, its seedling form is different from that of any other 

 species or variety of the genus, as I pointed out some years 

 ago (9, p. 337) ; and so far as I have been able to ascertain, 

 both from Mr. Cox and from personal observation, it does not 

 at any period of its existence assume a xerophytic habit of 

 growth (10, p. 279). Concerning this latter matter, as men- 

 tioned towards the end of this paper, I hope before long to 

 make a definite statement. The other forest trees found in 

 conjunction with S. chathamica are Plagianthus chathami- 

 cus, P&cudopanax chathamicus, Coprosma chathamica, Olearia 

 traversii, Myrsine chathamica, and Gorokia macrocarpa, of 

 which the Sophora, the Plagianthus, and the Pseudopanax are 

 the most abundant. 



Why S. chathamica should be confined to the limestone 

 and found in no other part of Chatham Island, when a closely 

 allied species grows abundantly over volcanic rock in New 

 Zealand, is a very difficult question to answer. It may simply 

 be that it cannot compete in a wet position with the other 

 forest trees, and that the limestone forest is drier than any of 

 the other forest-formations on the island. At any rate, it is a 

 very striking example of the local distribution of a plant, and 

 of how a fall of a few metres in the general level of Chatham 

 Island would probably exterminate the species. The seeds of 

 Sophora found on the beaches by Travers and others were 

 most likely merely from the trees by the lagoon, and had 

 never come from New Zealand at all. 



Lagoon. 



If a portion of the sea be cut off from the main body of 

 water by an enclosing barrier of sand a lagoon is the result, 

 of which Te Whanga is the most important example. Its 

 waters are usually shallow for a considerable depth from the 

 shore, and so are favourable for plant-life ; but, being brackish, 

 only a limited number of phanerogams can exist in this 

 station, while frequent winds agitate the surface of the water 

 to such a degree that only those plants specially adapted to 



