Cockayne. — Plants of Chatham Island. 259 



flowers some years ago, and through her instrumentality this 

 has become fairly common in cultivation. There is a notion 

 prevalent that M. nobile cannot be grown inland at any dis- 

 tance from the sea, Mr. A. Bathgate, e.g., stating that it 

 requires the salt air (l 1 ), but this is quite a mistake. One of 

 the finest plants I ever saw in cultivation was shown to me 

 by Mr. T. W. Adams in a garden situated at Greendale, on 

 the Canterbury Plains, at a distance of twenty-four miles from 

 the sea, the plant in question having been there for more than 

 ten years, flowering regularly and bearing abundance of seed. 

 It seems to me that most likely M. nobile has been thrust into 

 its present maritime position not by choice, but by the pres- 

 sure of encroaching plants or other enemies. M. Battandier, 

 as the result of eleven years' close study of the flora of Algeria, 

 has come to a similar conclusion with regard to certain mari- 

 time plants, and in a most interesting paper details the facts 

 on which his opinion is based (1). 



Sand-dunes. 

 Sand-dunes of considerable extent and varying height 

 occupv a large proportion of the ground adjacent to the sea. 

 They extend along the whole east coast from Te Whakaru in 

 the north to Ouenga in the south, along most of the north 

 coast from Kaingaroa to Waitangi West, and along a very 

 large part of the coast of Petre Bay in the west. Before the 

 introduction of herbivorous animals these dunes were covered 

 in many places with a dense forest, consisting chiefly of 

 Olearia traversii and Myrsine chathamica, and reaching in 

 many places almost to the water's edge. At that time moving 

 sand-dunes may have been unknown. But now there is a 

 very different state of affairs. True, the forest still fringes 

 the" coast-line in many places, but here and there it is broken 

 through by great hills of drifting sand, which have ouried 

 wholly or in part the former plant-covering. Such moving 

 hills have in some instances passed beyond the limits of the 

 former wooded area, and are encroaching rapidly on the 

 inland meadow land. A striking example of this encroaching 

 sand burying the forest may be observed between Waitangi 

 and Te One. Tnere in places tree-tops project from the 

 summit of the highest dunes. In one spot on the landward 

 side on the flat is a grove of Olearia traversii where every 

 stage of burial can be observed, from the tree-tops almost 

 covered, to their bases just covered by the sand. This 

 advance landwards of the sand is very serious from the 

 economic point of view ; but happily the settlers have found a 

 remedy within recent years in tne planting of marrarn-grass 

 on the moving dunes. This, as might be expected from the 

 results of planting this grass in other countries, has proved a 



