CoLENSO. — Bn-ih Notes. 479 



2. On some Very Small Floicerimj Indiijenoiis Spriuy Plants. 



I have often been struck with the neat and pleasing appear- 

 ance of several of our very small flowering plants inhabiting 

 the high, open, stony plains in the early spring. These, though 

 mostly perennial, are low, and cannot be detected from a little 

 distance, looking over and across those long and broad flats. 

 To a visitor "at that season, so looking at the plains, with their 

 small, stunted, withered herbage, they appear 7J7nH(f /ac/e very 

 dreary, and look still more cheerless than they really are when 

 the blustering cold winds occasionally sweep over them in fitful 

 blasts, soughing through the. dry and dead stems of the last 

 year's grasses. To discover their hidden floral beauties is no 

 easy matter, particularly at this season of the year ; to do this 

 one nnist wander into them, and sit or lie down, and peer 

 closely about, even to the pushing- aside the slightly higher and 

 coarser plants (small herbs and grasses not yet in flower) which 

 overtop and conceal and preserve them — the lowly vernal 

 flowering ones. Some of those tiny flowering herbs form broad 

 perennial patches or little beds, and sometimes slightly-raised 

 dwarf cushions ; but they are generally very low and flat, 

 seldom rising above hin. from the ground ; but all grow thickly 

 intermixed, frequently revealing themselves, even when not in 

 flower, or their flowers closed, as happens on a dull cloudy day, 

 l)y the various colours and tints of their leaves, which range 

 from very dark- to pale-green, bronze, brown, light-red, and 

 <lark-purple. A few of the more striking may be more parti- 

 cularly noticed. 



One of them, which is sure on first seeing to attract the 

 attention, is a minute and neat creeping species of Epilohlum 

 (the si'::vllest of the many species of that genus found in New 

 Zealand), with its numerous curiously - marked, close -set, 

 regular, orbicular, yellowish-brown leaves, less than 1 line in 

 diameter, and its small, erect, white, star-like flowers. Another 

 is a thick-growing species of Oxalls, with its very small, almost 

 crisped, compact leaves, and pretty yellow flowers. A minute, 

 erect, tufted Aspcrula, with its curious bicuspidate leaves, and 

 terminal white starry flowers always horizontal and gazing 

 to the sky ; of this genus I think there are two species to be 

 found here, one being the A. perpusilla of Hooker, which, he 

 says, "is the smallest flowering plant in New Zealand." A 

 little and peculiar half-rosulate species of Ilannnculns, with its 

 small spreading leaves forming a circle closely appressed to 

 the ground, audits attractive, shining,yellow, star-like flowers, 

 of 5-6 petals, rather large for the little plant ; and when the 

 flowers of a score or a dozen of them closely growing together 

 are displayed to the sun they present a lovely galaxy of floral 

 beauty hi the desert wild sure to evoke a word of praise. In 



