423 Transactions. — Botany. 



leaves on old plants are excessively thick and conaceous, 

 doubly crenate with a very short almost sheathing petiole, 

 but on young plants growing in the shade they were almost 

 membranous in texture, and very large, some examples mea- 

 suring- over Tin. in length by Sin. in breadth. The flower- 

 heads are arranged in crowded terminal racemes, 4in. to Tin. 

 long, the rhachis, bracts, peduncles, and outer involucral 

 leaves being alike clothed with dense snow-w^hite tomentum. 

 The remarkable difference in habit and foliage causes the 

 plant to present an appearance which contrasts strongly with 

 0. colensoi, although the technical distinctions are almost 

 trivial. 0. lyallii will be a valuable addition to tlie New Zea- 

 land plants available for the purposes of the cultivator. It 

 appears to be restricted to the Snares and the Auckland 

 Islands, but is rare and local in the latter habitat. 



The patches of green foliage amongst the white masses of 

 Olearia were caused by another grand plant, Senecio muelleri, 

 T. Kirk, a noble species, originally described" from specimens 

 collected on Herekopere Island, January, 1883; but the speci- 

 mens in the original habitat are not nearly so large as those 

 found on the Snares, which attain the extreme height of 26ft. 

 with a short trunk fully 2ft. in diameter. The branches are 

 somewhat naked, so that the tree presents a straggling ap- 

 pearance, but the handsome foliage and large terminal panicles 

 of yellow ilov/ers place it amongst the finest members of a 

 large genus abounding in grand species, while its extreme 

 rarity invests it with special interest. 



Veronica elliptica, to which reference has already been 

 made, completes the short list of three species comprising the 

 ligneous plants of the island. The plant found on the Snares 

 is, however, of a more robust form than the plant found at 

 Stewart Island and the Bluff; the flowers also are larger, 

 with pure-white corollas, which are never pencilled or streaked. 



The open land is covered with tussocks of the remarkable 

 grass Poa foliacea, the lowland form of which produces a vast 

 amount of nutritious herbage. Large tussocks of Car ex trifida, 

 the largest of the New Zealand species, occur amongst the 

 Poa, and one or two small plants of no great importance find 

 shelter at their base. 



One of the most interesting plants is Colohanthus mus- 

 coides, which was supposed to be restricted to the Auckland 

 and Campbell Islands, where it is abundant on sea-cliff's ; 

 it appears to be confined to a single locality on the Snares, 

 where it occurs in a small swamp. Its northern range is thus 

 extended fully a hundred and fifty miles. It forms rather 

 large dense masses, the inner portion consisting of the 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xv., p. 359. 



