Aston. — riutnerogamic PJaiifx liidigenoKs in WeU'nigton rroviiirr. 225 



Art. XXVIII. — List of Phanerogamic Plants Indigenous in the Wellington 



Province. 



By B. C. Aston, F.I.C, F.C.S. 



[Read befoie the Wellington Philosophical Society, 5th October, 1910.] 



No list of Wellington indigenous flowering-plants has been published since 

 Buchanan (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 6, p. 210), in 1873, published his paper, 

 '• Notes on the Flora of the Province of WeUington." In this he gives a 

 list of all indigenous plants known to him, including the cryptogams. In 

 Buchanan's time the flora of the alpine portion of the province was prac- 

 tically unknown, and some of the alpine species included in his list were 

 wrongly identified. Owing to the researches of the late T. Kirk, who from 

 time to time discovered several new species ; T. F. Cheeseman (" Manual of 

 the New Zealand Flora," Wellington, 1906), who on three occasions visited 

 the volcanic plateau ; D. Petrie ('" Visit to Mount Hector," Trans. N.Z 

 Inst., vol. 40, 1907, p. 289) ; L. Cockayne C Report of a Botanical Survey 

 of Tongariro National Park," Lands Department, Wellington, 1908) ; 

 E. Phillips Turner (" Report of a Botanical Examination of the Higher 

 Waimarino District," Lands Department, WelUngton, 1909) ; and the 

 writer (" Botanical Notes on a Journey across the Tararuas," Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., vol. 42, 1909, p. 13) the distribution of species has become better 

 known, identifications have been corrected, new species have been described, 

 and the ecology of certain districts has been worked out. Thus, though 

 Buchanan enumerates only 476 species of phanerogams, the present list 

 includes some 680, a fact which alone would warrant the publication of a 

 revised list. 



Since this paper was read, the author, with Mr. J. S. Tennant, spent in 

 January, 1911, a week exploring the Kaimanawa Mountains, lying to the 

 south of the volcanic plateau. As a result of this visit it has been found 

 necessary to widen the range in altitude of a number of species. It 

 has, for instance, been quite common to find a plant growing 1,000 ft. 

 above its accepted habitat, a fact which would point to the cHmate and 

 soil conditions of that range being much more favourable to plant-hfe 

 than those of mountains of the same altitude elsewhere in the province. 

 The results of the Kaimanawa visit have been largely embodied in this 

 paper. 



The land-boundaries of the WelHngton Province as defined in a map 

 kmdly supplied to me by the Lands Department, WelUngton, are as follows : 

 A straight line is drawn from the mouth of the Patea River to Pipirild, 

 on the Wanganui River, which is the natural boundary from this point to 

 the 39th parallel. Following the parallel eastward, the northern boundarv 

 stops at the Ahimanawa Range, a little to the west of the Township of 

 Tarawera. From this point to the Manawatu Gorge the boundary runs 

 south in almost a straight line through the Kaweka Range, but following 

 at the southern end the axis of the Ruahine Range. From the Gorge the 

 8— Trans. 



