Cockayne. — Development of Seedlings. 359 



the river-beds and plains. These latter, indeed, to judge by 

 the seedling leaves of the former, should be the ancestral 

 forms, but it is quite likely that they are reproduced ances- 

 tral forms from these now almost defunct species. Such 

 might be called reinstatement of a species, and the Pseudo- 

 panax quoted before may also be explained on this suppo- 

 sition. 



The unsuitability of many well-knov^n and common plants 

 to their surroundings seems worthy of mention here. That 

 very little change in climate would be required to destroy 

 for ever some of our indigenous plants may be seen by their 

 behaviour in cultivation. On the low-lying portions of the 

 Canterbury Plains quite a number of South Island plants are 

 not really hardy. Fuchsia excorticata, Aristotelia race?nosa, 

 Piper excelsum, Schefflera digitata, and Myoporum IcBtum will 

 at once suggest themselves to any grower of New Zealand 

 plants. Others — Veronica elliptica, for instance— are easily 

 damaged by frost. From my paper, " On the Freezing of 

 Alpine Plants" (Transactions, vol. xxx., p. 435), it will be seen 

 that quite a small amount of cold, and that for no very long 

 period, was sufficient to kill fifteen out of twenty-two, and 

 the survivors were nearly all so much damaged that they 

 could hardly hope to survive. A severe winter in a climate 

 so mild as England plays great havoc with most New 

 Zealand plants, many Veronicas being hardy only in such 

 locahties as Cornwall, Devon, the Isle of Wight, &c. At 

 Castle Hill, in a sheltered ravine, after a severe winter, I 

 have noted Veronica traversii, var., very much damaged, and 

 at 1,460 m., on Hill's Peak, on a ridge fully exposed to the 

 wind, at one time covered with vegetation, all was destroyed 

 during the winter of 1896. 



It may not be out of place here to give some account of 

 how I have carried on, and propose to carry on, this work. 

 My pursuits as field-naturalist and collector, gathering yearly 

 as many different sorts of seeds as I can procure, puts me in 

 possession each season of seeds of from one hundred to two 

 hundred species of plants, the sources whence all of them 

 were procured being exactly known. These seeds I sow in 

 small pots in very porous sandy loam, keeping those species 

 well apart which belong to the same genera, so that no con- 

 fusion can arise through seeds being washed from one pot into 

 another. Small seeds, such as Gazdtheria, Fuchsia, Pratia, 

 and even larger ones, such as Veronica, Celmisia, and other 

 Compositae, I do not cover wuth earth, for they germinate 

 much better when firmly pressed down upon the surface soil 

 and kept moist. Each pot is labelled with name of plant, 

 date of sowing, and a number which corresponds to the 

 one on the seed-packets as sent to various botanic institutes 



