Herkiott. — Plants from the Southern Islands. 413 



those hollows between the rocks which afford plenty of shade 

 and moisture and which are large enough for peat to have col- 

 lected in abundance. In these same hollows occurs also the 

 Ranunculus pinguis described above. 



Anatomy (fig. 23). — There is a smooth thickened cuticle (cut.) 

 on both surfaces, interrupted on the lower side by numerous 

 stomata (st.), which project slightly. The epidermal cells (ep.) 

 are more or less cubical, with slightly thickened walls, the same 

 size on both upper and lower surface. Just above the one vein 

 is a depression on the upper surface, and this is lined by epi- 

 dermal cells somewhat smaller than the rest, with slightly thicker 

 cell- walls. The hairs (h.h.) forming the tomentum at the edges 

 of the leaf arise in the epidermal cells : they are short and 

 thin-walled. The chlorenchyma is differentiated into palisade 

 (pal.) and spongy (sp.). The palisade tissue consists of a layer 

 three cells thick of rectangular cells densely filled with chloro- 

 phyll. This passes gradually into the spongy tissue, composed 

 of irregularly shaped cells with numerous air-spaces (a.s.), 

 making up the greater part of the tissue of the leaf. There is 

 only one vascular bundle (v.b.) in the centre of the leaf, which is 

 situated beneath a depression on the upper surface. (This is 

 probably what is meant by describing the leaf as " veinless.") 

 The bundle is surrounded by a well-marked endodermis (endo.). 



Plantago, sp. 



There seems to be some doubt as to the real affinities of this 

 species. It is found only on Ewing Island of the Lord Auck- 

 land Group, growing on the coastal rocks. Its leaves are ar- 

 ranged in rosettes. The upper portion of each leaf is toothed. 

 In the small leaves I examined there were only two teeth, one 

 on each side (fig. 24c). The lower portion is membranous and 

 frequently coloured at the base with red colouring-matter. It 

 grows with leaves flattened close to the rock. Dr. Cockayne 

 states (p. 239) that this is the species referred to by Hooker 

 (Fl. Antarc.) as P. carnosa, but that he afterwards classed it 

 with the species P. brownii. In Dr. Cockayne's opinion, how- 

 ever, this plant bears " no resemblance whatever to the plant 

 known as P. brownii in the Southern Alps. It much more re- 

 sembles a species of Plantago very common in coastal situations 

 in the neighbourhood of Foveaux Strait, which is probably 

 P. hamiltonii, Kirk. The Auckland Island species certainly 

 seems to me distinct from any New Zealand species " (p. 323). 



There is a specimen of this plant growing on the rockery. 

 The snow and frosts last winter destroyed most of the older 

 and larger leaves, but it is now recovering and sending up a 

 small rosette of green leaves through the old decayed ones, 



