Ecological Botany. 



SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



21-; 



Its upper surface is uneven, this depending upon the h:i,l)it of the individual 

 species. Thus the dark-coloured but reddish Sutfo)u'(( has a Hat top, the green 

 Metrosideros is rounded, and the brownish Dracophylbuit. raises aloft its erect fasti- 

 giate shoots above the general foliage-level. 



At its upper limit the scrub merges into the Danthonia meadow, certain of 

 its more xerophytic membei's being dotted over that formation — e.g., Cassinia 

 VauviUiersii and Dracophyllum longifolium ; but the scrub as a whole is confined 

 to the numerous gullies and hollows, where there is still abundance of stunted Metro- 

 sideros and Nothopanax simplex, these more mesophytic plants being absent on the 

 meadow proper, as I have shown previously ("Botanical Excursion," p. 267). 



Fig. 11. — Mountain S. i;ri;, iiixsis-iiN.. . iiii ii.v ni !-.irNiii. I; 

 111 foreground, commeucement of tussock meadow uf Jh 



}ithoni'i 



Where there are openings in the scrub, or where there is space beneath the 

 gnarled and closely interwoven branches, are a few of the meadow plants, or a scanty 

 undergrowth of the fern Blechnum capense. 



The formation is closely related to the Drncophi/UuDi. scrub of Campbell Island ; 

 also, it has affinities with the subalpine scrub of New Zealand, but especially that 

 of Veronica, Coprosma, Dracophyllum, and other xerophytes to be found on the sides 

 of river-terraces in the drier portions of the Southern Alps and elsewhere. 



Genetically, the scrub is merely rata forest modified by more extreme con- 

 ditions, especially wind, altitude playing a minor part (fig. 1 1 ). 



