"336 Transactions. 



long arching runners which root at the nodes, there producing a 

 thickish rootstock, from which many huge leaves raised high 

 on long hollow stalks arise, each mass of leaves looking like an 

 independent plant, as indeed it really is. Such a plant is an 

 example of those large-leaved subantarctic plants which seem 

 altogether too luxuriant for their surroundings. (See Cockayne, 

 13 ; p. 259.) 



Lianes are not common amongst the true coastal plants, 

 there being only Tetragonia trigyna, Angelica geniculata (if this 

 be included among the " coastal "), and occasionalh^ Calys- 

 tegia. soldandla. Parasites are altogether wanting. Griselifiia 

 lucida is frequently epiphytic in North Island forests, but in the 

 South Island, where it seems strictly a coastal plant, it is confined 

 to rocks. 



Heterophylly, where absolutely different leaves appear on the 

 same plant, or where there is a juvenile stage distinct from the 

 adult, or a prolonged juvenile form, is wanting among the real 

 coastal plants, though it is so common a phenomenon in New 

 Zealand, and shown even by some inland-coastal plants. Hy- 

 ■inenanthera crassifolia and Plagianthus divaricatus may, how- 

 ever, be considered to exhibit it to some small extent. 



On the other hand, many of the plants are " plastic " enough. 

 Coprosma baueri is a tree on dry clayey hillsides and a prostrate 

 shrub on rocks. In both cases it has thick, rolled leaves. But 

 when it is grown in the shade and in a wind-still atmosphere it 

 has thinner, much larger, and quite flat leaves (Cockayne, 15a). 

 Shade, too, has a most marked effect on the leaves of Selliera 

 radicans. In other cases the nature of the soil and its water 

 content makes the difference. Thus Rwnex neglectus grows 

 most luxuriantly amongst the coarse shingle of an upper shore, 

 whereas in the wet soil of a coastal moor it is so stunted as to 

 be hardly recognisable. Cotula dioica, however, may be much 

 more luxuriant in the mud of a river-fiat exposed to brackish 

 water than when growing in a dry salt meadow. But this 

 plant varies much in form and character in the same meadow, 

 and doubtless some of the forms are rather constitutional and 

 perhaps hereditary than merely the result of a special stimulus. 

 Myoforum IcBtum is usually a low tree, but on the Moko Hinou 

 Islands and Cuvier Island it is quite prostrate, with slender, 

 flexible branches. Dodoncea viscosa, too. is either a tree, a 

 shrub, or a prostrate plant according to its position. At Kai- 

 koura in a salt meadow I collected a form of Salicornia australis 

 with abnormally slender shoots, but which on cultivation in ordi- 

 nary garden soil soon acquired a more typical form. This 

 latter case is of interest, since the Kaikoura station was lime- 

 stone, and the chemical nature of the ground seems to have 



