404 Transactions, 



midrib are covered, especially in young leaves, with cottony 

 hairs loosely interwoven. The leaves close to the end of the 

 shoot are arranged spirally, but the remainder are brought 

 into two ranks through twisting of the leaf-sheath, the leaf- 

 surface thus becoming horizontal "* (c/. Epilobium conferti- 

 jolium). 



Hah. — This plant appears to flourish well near the sea, where 

 it is frequently washed by the salt spray. In the Auckland 

 Group it is found in certain cases trailing over the rocks on the 

 shore just above high-water mark, and therefore " very fre- 

 quently drenched by the sea-spray," or rooted in the chinks 

 of the vertical rocks with its long stems trailing down the face 

 of the rock. It is also mentioned as occurring in the Pleuro- 

 phyllum meadow with Cot. propinqua. 



On Campbell Island it is found creeping over the stones of 

 the rocky shore. 



Plants inhabiting a maritime region are sometimes spoken 

 of as salt-loving, but this name is a misnomer. Plants thus 

 situated often flourish quite as well, if not better, in a soil free 

 from, salt ; but in this way they escape competition with other 

 plants which would certainly get the best of them in a richly 

 cultivated soil. They have some particular adaptation which 

 enables them to compete successfully with the adverse con- 

 ditions which would kill other plants at once. So they flourish 

 where they can, " but at the same time are always tacitly pro- 

 testing against their environment, for they at once show how 

 much more vigorous they can become when they are grown in 

 a different and more congenial soil." j So this Cotula lanata 

 flourishes very well on the rockery right away from sea-spray, 

 but its peculiar and characteristic structures by which it pre- 

 pares itself to maintain an existence in its natural habitat 

 remain, being hereditary. 



The leaves are thick and fleshy, and little pits may be seen 

 covering both surfaces. In the drawing illustrating a trans- 

 verse section through the leaf the upper surface is more or less 

 flattened, while the lower surface is concave. 



Anatomy (figs. 15a, 15&, 15c, 15d). — Fig. 15a is a section 

 through one of the teeth into which the upper margins of the 

 leaflets are divided. The leaf is seen to be composed chiefly 

 of a large-celled thin-walled parenchyma (par.) containing few 

 chlorophyll corpuscles, and leaving frequent air-spaces (a.s.), 

 which occupy the centre of the leaf. This is bounded on each 

 surface by a compact tissue, three cells or more in thickness, 



* Cockayne (1903), p. 241-2. 

 -j-Henslow (1895), p. 34. 



