CoLENso. — On Four Notable Foreign Plants. 343 



regions, survivors of the flora driven south before the ad- 

 vancing ice-sheet of the glacial period. 



8. Because we have here in New Zealand on our mountains 

 two closely-allied plants resembling the Swiss one, which are 

 usually known as the New Zealand edelweiss — viz., Gnapha- 

 Ihim (Helichrysiun) colensoi, and Gnaplialium {Helichrysuvi) 

 grandiceps, both plants first described by Sir J. D. Hooker in 

 his "Handbook of the Flora of New Zealand," the former of 

 these two from Mount Hikurangi, near the East Cape, and also 

 from the Ruahine Mountain-range, where I first met with it in 

 1845 ; and the latter from the Southern Alps, where it was 

 first detected in several localities by Dr. Sinclair, by Professor 

 Von Haast, and by Dr. Hector. There is not much difference 

 between them apparent, however, on close comparison and 

 examination, and they strongly resemble their European 

 relative. 



Several years ago the Swiss cantons were obliged to pass 

 a law prohibiting the common reckless collecting, and conse- 

 quent rapid destruction, of their alpine plant Leontopodium al- 

 innmn, for the havoc among the patches of edelweiss had 

 become so great that, in order to protect it from the ravages 

 of climbing tourists, the Government of Valais was compelled, 

 in 1887, to make enclosures for the undisturbed cultivation of 

 the plant, and at the same time to issue an order that the 

 edehveiss was no longer to be plucked. This was soon fol- 

 lowed by Austria ; and I find more recently that the Diet of 

 Tyrol have been obliged to do the same. Here is a notice of 

 it from a late London paper: "The Diet of the Tyrol last 

 week passed a Bill imposing heavy fines upon persons found 

 selling any samples of the beautiful but rare alpine flower 

 called edelweiss, which has been pulled ujd by the roots on 

 the mountains. A similar Act was passed seven years ago by 

 the Diet of Salzburg, with a view to the preservation of the 

 edelweiss plant, which is threatened with extinction in the 

 Austrian Alps. In the Salzburg district the success of this 

 legislation is not encouraging."''' 



Its destruction was one of the many unpleasant results of 

 the alpine mania. The little plant, with its protective covering 

 of woolly hair, is no doubt a curious and pretty one ; but 

 there are many more attractive flowers on the mountains. 

 The edelweiss is, however, rather difficult to obtain, and, not 

 being found much below an altitude of 5,000ft. or 6,000ft., the 

 wearing of a sprig in the tourist's hat, after the guides' style, 

 is supposed to infer a moderate acquaintance with the moun- 

 tains a little way from the hotel-doors, if not some experience 

 in that "climbing" which, for two or three months in the 



* London Standard, 21st April, 1893. 



