49J: Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



between them : if you choose the top you cannot always main- 

 tain your choice ; if you choose the other route you have to 

 drag your legs in the most wearisome way. The timber is 

 mainly Olearia hjallii (a larger form than Olearia colensoi), a 

 beautiful shrub or tree, here rising to the dignity of a minor 

 forest-tree, with large, round, glossy leaves with flannelly 

 backs, and bearing bunches of large but inconspicuous rayless 

 flower-heads. When this grows a certain height it falls down 

 with the weight of the leaves and the pressure of the wund, 

 and takes root where it touches ground ; then it grov/s up- 

 wards again ; and after awhile it falls again, tearing its oldest 

 roots up and rooting itself a third time : thus the trunk is 

 ahiiost gifted with a power of locomotion. It grows three 

 times as thick as a man's body. This tree is known in 

 Stewart Island as the mutton-bird tree ; and we soon found 

 the reason, for the whole of the ground on the island is honey- 

 combed with mutton-bird holes. The traveller constantly 

 breaks the surface and drops into these tunnels, but the 

 depth is not great. At every turn crested penguins {Eudyptes 

 yacliyrhynclius), single and in pairs and small flocks, are met 

 in the bush and in the grass. They are literally everywhere, 

 and their harsh note never ceases. The whole of the upper 

 soil of the island is guano, matted with the fibrous roots of 

 the Olearia, the dead wood of which adds a little to the soil. 

 Besides the bray of the penguins, whenever you stop you hear 

 the gentle mewing of the mutton-birds {Puffinus tristis) under- 

 ground — young birds, I presume. It was the nesting season, 

 but few eggs were obtained, as there was no time to dig. We 

 saw very few of these birds on land, whence I concluded 

 that the old birds were abroad feeding and would return at 

 night. 



W^e found a few interesting plants. Senecio mullcri, a 

 handsome shrub, otherwise rare, is plentiful here ; a Ligiis- 

 ticum is found on the clifi's, and near it the pretty forget-me- 

 not (Myosotis capitata), while the sweet-scented Veronica 

 elliptica, of the variety called odora by the earlier botanists, 

 borders the shore at every point. On the whole, the plants 

 are not a striking feature of this group so far as variety 

 goes. 



Perhaps the most striking plant on the island is Aralia 

 lyallii, or an allied species, which here grows to an inunense 

 size, and seems to do equally well under the trees or in the 

 open, the rich guano soil evidently suiting it. Its leaves are 

 sometimes 28in. in diameter, possibly even more. They stand 

 4ft. high, on stout rhizomes, and form, with the whitish-green 

 masses of flowers and waxy seeds which rise in huge bunches 

 from the centre of the plant, a very attractive object. The 

 plant seemed to me to differ in habit from that seen at Stewart 



