THE NEW ZEALAND COAST-LINE. 2 
CHAPTER III. 
THE FLORA AND VEGETATION OF THE SEA-COAST. 
General remarks—Statistics regarding the flora—Inland plants on the coast— 
Salt and succulence—The ice-plant and other succulents—Growth-forms of 
coastal plants—Muehlenbeckia Astoni—A coastal climbing-plant—Seaweeds 
—The sea-grasses—Sandy and rocky shores—Sandhills, their plants and 
plant-associations—Sand-binders—-The spiny rolling-grass—-Plants of sand- 
hollows—The mangrove and its strange habits—Sait-swamps—Salt-meadows 
—Peaty salt-meadow—Vegetation of rocks and cliffs—The pohutukawa— 
Phormium associations—Coastal shrubberies—Coastal forest—The kohekohe 
—The home of the tuatara and of a New Zealand frog—The wind-swept 
Open Bay Islands. 
A COAST-LINE between four and five thousand miles in length, 
extending from nearly the latitude of Sydney in the north to far 
beyond that of the southernmost point of Tasmania in the south, 
may well furnish a great deal of diversity in both species and plant- 
communities. The varieties of stations for plant-life are also aug- 
mented by the physical features of the shore. In some places calm 
fiords, flanked by towering, precipitous mountains, stretch far inland ; 
in others an ironbound coast faces the ocean storms. There are long 
stretches of level shore—of shingle, gravel, or of sand—extensive 
estuaries, and tidal rivers. In short, the two main Islands of New 
Zealand, together with Stewart Island, present a diversified coast not 
surpassed in variety of physical features by any other of equal size. 
The flora consists of three classes of plants—namely, those which 
always occur near the sea, those which generally occur near the sea 
but which occasionally are found inland, and those which are found 
equally both near and at a considerable distance from the coast. 
Leaving out of consideration the last-named class, the total number 
of species, considering only the seed-plants, the ferns, and fern-allies, 
are about 190, and these belong to 54 families and 107 genera. Of 
the above about 144 are confined to the coast-line or its immediate 
neighbourhood, and the remainder occur in a few localities inland, 
but generally speaking they are of but slight importance as con- 
stituents of the lowland vegetation. Nine families and 35 genera 
