Cockayne. — Development of Seedlings. 375 



of the early ovate type, minutely hairy, with one or two 

 blunt teeth or sometimes conspicuously lobed at apex, taper- 

 ing at base into the short, channelled, connate petioles. 



7th pair of leaves and onwards are of the lanceolate type, 

 varying a good deal in width in different seedlings. 



Stem at first green and succulent, terete, pilose with 

 hooked hairs with hooks pointing upwards ; nodes swollen 

 and purple ; internodes, in plant 6 cm. high, very constant in 

 length, about 6 mm. long ; branches from base not very 

 numerous, and in young plants producing leaves of the early 

 ovate toothed type. 



The above description differs materially from that of 

 Lubbock,"'' but it is more than possible that the seedlings he 

 described were raised from some form quite distinct from the 

 above. V. salicifolia, Forst., is one of those species which 

 Hooker held to include a great number of very different; forms 

 connected by supposed intermediates. Baron von Miieller 

 went even further, and reduced all the New Zealand Veronicas 

 to one species, f Kirk, in his recent writings, has separated 

 some new species from the Veronicas of this section;]: — e.g., 

 V. rotundata, V. latisepala, and V. squalida — and probably 

 intended restoring some of those discarded by Hooker, for 

 in the same article he refers to V. myrtifolia, Banks and Sol., 

 and I think when the seedling forms of V. salicifolia, its 

 branches and allies, are worked out several new species will 

 have to be made. The adult form of leaf in the plant under 

 consideration— a widely spread form in the Canterbury Alps — 

 has the leaf much drawn out and narrowed towards the apex, 

 being quite acuminate. The much greater toothing in the 

 juvenile than in the adult form is of interest. It is suggestive 

 that seedlings grown in very damp localities, such as in the 

 subalpine scrub at the head of Otira Gorge, are toothed to 

 an extraordinary degree, and self-sown seedlings of a closely 

 related form growing in my garden amongst ferns are also 

 much toothed. The channelled connate petioles guide water 

 falling on the leaves to the leaf-bases, where it lodges for a 

 considerable time. 



No. 388. Veronica traversii, Hook. f. Plate XXXII., 

 figs. 27 and 28, and Plate XXXIV., figs. 62 and 66. 



(Probably the typical form.) 



Seed collected from a plant at Ribbonwood Creek, Craigie- 

 burn Mountains, at elevation of 700 m. Germinated rapidly. 



» "On Seedlings," p. 326. 



t "The A^egetation of the Chatham Islands," pp. 45-47. 

 :[ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxviii., pp. 528-530: "On Veronica" by 

 T. Kirk. 



