346 Transactions. 



Art XLIV. — On the Supposed Mount Bonpland Habitat of 

 Celmisia lindsayi, Hook. f. 



By L. Cockayne, Ph.D., Cor.F.B.S.Ed. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th September. 1905.] 



Among several interesting species of plants discovered by Dr. 

 W. Lauder Lindsay in the course of his visit to Otago in 1861-62 

 was the very fine Celmisia which now bears his name. ! his 

 plant was especially notable since up till comparatively recent- 

 years it was supposed to be confined to that limited area of the 

 south-east Otago coast where Lindsay had first collected it, 

 although the genus is essentially alpine and subalpine. How- 

 ever, some years ago, Mr. Henry J. Matthews, whose important 

 botanical explorations in the Otago lake district and elsewhere 

 have added many valuable facts to New Zealand botany, 

 brought from the Humboldt Mountains, of which Mount Bon- 

 pland is the principal peak, a Celmisia much resembling C. 

 lindsayi. Also, the late Mr. W. Martin, of Fairfield, whose fine 

 collection of alpine plants is well known, had collected in the same 

 region a Celmisia, evidently most closely resembling C. lindsayi, 

 which Mr. J. Buchanan published in 1888 under the name of 

 Erigeron bonplandii* that botanist having come to the conclusion 

 that the suffruticose Celmisias should be united to Erigeron.^ 



That alpine plants frequently occur at sea-level is well known, 

 while several species of Celmisia also occur in the lowlands. 

 Such are Celmisia longijolia ; C. petiolata, var. rigida,% of 

 Stewart Island ; C. verbascifolia, C. holosericea, C. vernicosa, 

 of the Southern Islands ; while quite recently Mr. A. H. Cockayne 

 and also Mr. H. J. Matthews have collected C. coriacea near the 

 sea in north-east Marlborough. Such cases are of considerable 

 phytogeographical interest, which becomes greater where a 

 plant is found only on the coast and in the alpine region but 

 is wanting in the intermediate country. 



In 1896 Mr. D. Petrie's most important " List of the Flower- 

 ing Plants indigenous to Otago "§ appeared, in which the alpine 

 habitat of Celmisia lindsayi is mentioned. " I have seen 

 numerous living plants of this species brought by Mr. Henry 

 Matthews, of Dunedin, from the neighbourhood of Lake Harris,"|| 



*" On some New Native Plants" (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xix. 1887, 

 p. 213). 



t " Description of a New Species of Erigeron " (Trans. X.Z. Inst., 

 vol. xvii, 1885, p. 287). 



% This 1 consider a distinct species. 



§ Trans. X.Z. Inst,, vol. xxviii, 1896, p. 540. 



|| Lake Harris is in the close vicinity of the Humboldt Mountains. 



