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ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. II 



a great many others. The underwood is composed of bushes and shrubs of the 

 most different kinds, especially species of Panax and Aralia, above which the slender 



Nikau palm (Areca sapida), the sole representative of its genus upon New Zealand, 

 rears its sap-green crown in picturesque majesty. 



' While this palm and the fern trees remind us by their forms of tropical forests, 

 the New Zealand forest owes its tropical luxuriance to the countless parasitical 

 weeds, ferns, to the Pandaneae (Freycinetia Banksii) and Orchideae, covering trunks 

 and branches, and to the creepers (Rhipogonum, Rubus, Metrosideros, Clematis, 



