392 Transactions. — Botany. 



regular alternate short stout teeth (quite different from the 

 coarse serrations of the first type of leaf), with yellowish 

 rather blunt tips and their bases on upper surface of leaf 

 slightly swollen ; upper surface very dark-green, often marked 

 with pale-brown blotches, especially along midrib and bases 

 of teeth ; under surface paler than upper, and brown on mid- 

 rib and round margin ; midrib very prominent, raised and 

 reddish-yellow on upper surface ; petiole or base of leaf ex- 

 panding into amplexicaul sheath slightly swollen. 



Stipules subulate, membranous, adnate to leaf-sheath at 

 base. 



Stem erect, often bent or twisted, stout, woody, brownish, 

 marked with many oblong or round white blotches ; inter- 

 nodes very much reduced above, longer below ; several of the 

 seedlings under examination 4-5 cm. high are already branch- 

 ing from near apex of primary stem. 



The further development has been treated of at consider- 

 able length by Kirk (" Forest Flora," pp. 59, 60; and Trans. 

 N.Z. Inst., vol. X., Appendix, pp. xxxi. to xxxiv.). He shows 

 that there are various varieties of P. crassifoliuni, and that 

 some of these have distinct and constant seedling forms, while 

 one, the form of the Chatham Islands, never passes through 

 the long-leaved seedling form of which my description above 

 is but a preliminary stage. If there are several seedling forms 

 distinct from one another except in the very earliest stage, 

 then I should certainly think, from biological grounds, that 

 there are as many species as there are distinct seedling forms. 

 The matter is certainly one which needs going into again 

 from a specific point of view, to say nothing of the in:;meuse 

 interest attached to any facts that might be elicited in regard 

 to the conditions which cause the various leaf-changes. It 

 would, I think, be easy to cause an adult to revert to the 

 juvenile form simply by cutting down a tree or removing 

 a considerable limb, when the new growth would be the 

 juvenile most likely. Cuttings of the mature form could also 

 be struck, and, when rooted, experimented with under various 

 known conditions. Botanists in the North Island, where the 

 var. trifoliata is to be found, nnght easily undertake this in- 

 teresting work. Kirk says, " The stem is invariably simple 

 in this stage of development, ranging from 6 ft. to 20 ft. in 

 height before branching"; but in my seedlings, grown in 

 moist greenhouse, etc., they are already branching, as stated 

 above. 



No. 326. Olearia odorata, Petrie. Plate XXXIII. , fig. 43. 



Seed collected from shrub growing in Waitaki Valley by 

 gged Eidge 



o - . . , 



Mr. Eutherfurd, Eugged Eidees. Germmation slow. 



