Cockayne. — Plants of Chatham Island. 273 



muelleri, Cotula coronopifolia, and Eleocharis gracillima are 

 also abundant, and form a kind of turf on the peaty mud. 

 Drier parts of the shore are occupied by thickets of Urtica 

 australis, while in other places are very large patches of 

 Samolus repens. Where the shore is drier still, and altogether 

 out of reach of the water at any time, is a grassy flat made up 

 of certain grasses, of which I have no specimens — Cotula 

 muelleri, Samohts repens, Selliera radicans, Crantzia lineata, 

 Pratia arcnaria, and probably a number of other plants not 

 specially noted. 



Salt Meadow. 



Along the great lagoon, especially on its eastern side, are 

 large stretches of flat land bordered on the east by forest, at 

 one time probably the bed of the lagoon, but now, so far as I 

 can remember, salt meadow. Unfortunately, I had no oppor- 

 tunity of examining this interesting formation, and so must 

 leave it undescribed for the present. 



Running Water. 

 Chatham Island, with its many lagoons, lakes, and 

 streams, might reasonably be expected to contain a con- 

 siderable number of phanerogamic water plants. On the 

 contrary, as pointed out by Travers (51, p. 177), these are by 

 no means plentiful. Most of the streams are very sluggish, 

 their slowly moving water is of a dark-brown colour, and 

 their bed a deep layer of peaty mud. During the rains of 

 winter they often overflow, and so give rise to numerous 

 swamps of greater or less extent, which, if in a forest, con- 

 tain the characteristic swampy forest trees. Such streams 

 sometimes contain no vegetation beyond certain Alga; in 

 others Myriophyllum elatinoides and Polygonum minus, var. 

 decipiens, grow in company with one another; while in the 

 very still pools of forest streams Callitriche muelleri is some- 

 times abundant, growing at 0-5 m. or more below the surface 

 of the water and extending on to the damp floor of the 

 forest. Potamogeton natans is by no means common, though 

 it is occasionally met with in shallow streams and in pools 

 formed from their overflow. The introduced watercress 

 {Nasturtium officinale) is abundant in many of the small 

 streams, but it does not seem to attain to anything like the 

 same dimensions as in certain South Island waters. On the 

 margin of the streams, growing right in the water, are usually 

 a number of swamp plants — Carices, Coprosma propinqua, 

 Arundo conspicua, &c. — or, if the stream be within a belt of 

 trees on the tableland, Myrsine coxii is often abundant, 

 growing right in the water. A station of this kind offers 

 much the same conditions as a swamp, but is more favour- 

 able for plant-life, the constantly moving water preventing 

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