Cockayne. — Obscnaiioiis on Coastal Vegetation. 317 



rate, the wind factor cannot be overestimated. Its mechanical 

 effect is everjnvhere apparent along the coast. The pahii in 

 north-west Nelson, the forests clothing the great mountains 

 rising out of the sea in the south-west, the shrubs hugging the 

 ground on the shore of Foveaux Strait, all exhibit an extreme 

 wind-shorn appearance. But the wind not only exerts an in- 

 fluence on plant-form, but it markedly affects the distribution 

 of the formations themselves. This is admirably illustrated by 

 the vegetation on the Bluff Hill, to quote a specific example. 

 On the sheltered side is mixed forest (taxads, Weinmanma. 

 and Mefrosideros), with the belt of shrubs mentioned above be- 

 tween it and the sea, but as the wind-swept side of the hill is 

 approached the forest dwindles and finally gives way to xero- 

 phytic shrubs [Cassinia rauvilliersii, Leptospermum scoparium) ; 

 finally the coastal scrub vanishes, and a scanty meadow^ of very 

 low-growing herbs alone remains. 



The soil factor, of course, also plays a prominent part both 

 in the form of the plants and the distribution of the formations. 

 Dunes, salt meadows, gravelly and sandy shores, and clayey 

 hills occupied by low tussock-grass are well enough known to 

 require no special mention here. In the south, however, are 

 wet, peaty flats or slight slopes, frequently more or less mixed 

 with sand, and which are, in fact, coastal moors. On these is 

 a very distinct vegetation, containing, it is true, many charac- 

 teristic salt-meadow plants, which, however, do not give the 

 stamp to the formation. On the contrary, special species are 

 dominant, such as Euphrasia repens, Gentiana saxosa, Plantago 

 hamiltonii, Montia fontana, Epilobium nummular if olium mini- 

 mum, Crassula moschata, and Eumex neglectus, while the rock- 

 ferns Asplenia m obtusatum and Lomaria dura are frecpiently 

 conspicuous. 



The rainfall, and, more important still, the number of rainy 

 •days, is a factor not peculiar to the coast, but nevertheless of 

 vital importance to the distribution of the formations. As 

 pointed out in the introduction, there is a vast difference be- 

 tween much of the eastern coast and the whole of the western, 

 with the consequence that one is dominated by arborescent forma- 

 tions and the other by meadows. The north in large measure, 

 and the south and south-west, for the same cause are rain-forest 

 districts. On the east, too, are local climates where forest comes, 

 or originally came, to the shore-line, as at the base of the Sea- 

 ward Kaikouras and thence southwards to the Waiau River, 

 Banks Peninsula, and the neighbourhood of Dunedin. Even 

 in Eastern Canterbury are many evidences of former forests to 

 be seen in swamps near the coast, and Riccarton Bush is the 

 surviving remnant of such forests, whose presence most likely 



