CHAr. IV] MOUNTAIN REGIONS IN TEMPERATE ZONES 759 



The Tibetan plateau is extremely poorly provided with vegetation. 

 Przhevalsky, who, however, studied it only during autumn and winter, 

 found it treeless; Hippophae, 15 cm. high, was the tallest shrub, whilst the 

 other shrubs (Potcntilla sp., Reaumuria sp.) crept along the ground ; there 

 was a little grass on sandy soil. 



ii. NEW ZEALAND. 

 From the southern hemisphere the mountain-flora of New Zealand, and 

 especially that of the dry eastern half of the South Island, will here be 

 described in detail with the help of some photographs taken by Cockayne 1 . 



Fig. 459. Montane region of the South Island of New Zealand. Interior of the beech-forest. 

 From a photograph by Cockayne. 



Whilst in the moist western part of the island temperate rain-forest 

 ascends the montane region and is replaced only in the upper part of 

 this region by tropophilous beech-forest, in the eastern part of the island 

 steppe prevails. Steppe, interrupted on stony ground by xerophilous 

 shrubs, covers the surface of the valleys and the slopes (Fig. 458). In 

 the upper part of the montane region, between 600 and i,coo meters, lofty 

 beech-forest for the first time appears in sheltered moist places (Figs. 

 458-461). It is evergreen forest, but yet of a tropophilous character. 

 Underwood is wanting, or is represented by beech-seedlings ; the trunks bear 



1 See also Diels. op. cit. 



