38 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
As the salt-swamp gets drier owmg to its members arresting 
the mud, its biological conditions change, and the environment 
becomes less suitable for the jomted rush and the sea-rush, but 
eminently fitted for turf-making plants which can tolerate salt, most 
of them provided with small thickish leaves. The chief species are 
the southern water-pimpernel (Samolus repens var. procumbens), a 
white-flowered plant of the primrose family, but not a bit like a 
primrose ; the creeping selliera (Selliera radicans), which has a curious 
corolla, looking as if a portion had been removed, also white; the 
shore-cotula (Cotula dioica), with aromatic leaves and yellowish 
button-like flower-heads; and the salt-grass (Alropis stricta). In 
some places, but by no means everywhere, growing in the pools or 
streams, is the beautiful New Zealand musk (Mimuius repens). Its 
flowers are bright lilac in colour, with an orange throat. Extremely 
abundant also in some localities (e.g., on the northern shores of 
Cook Strait), dotting the ground everywhere, is the pretty relative 
of the last-mentioned, the dwarf false musk (Mazus pumilio). The 
curious Australian sea-holly (Eryngium vesiculosum), a plant of the 
carrot family, which can increase at a great rate by means of 
runners, and so become a pasture weed, is an occasional salt- 
meadow plant. 
Other species of the salt-meadow are: A plant of the fat-hen 
family, the spreading -orache (Atriplex patula); the three - ribbed 
arrow-grass (T'riglochin striatum var. filifolium) ; the succulent Suaeda 
maritima (but frequently absent); the two kinds of wild celery 
(Apium prostratum and A. filifolium); and the swamp-cotula (Cotula 
coronopifolia). 
In parts of Southland, Stewart Island, and the small islands 
of Foveaux Strait the ground is very peaty. Here are different 
conditions and a very different association. The plant-covering 
makes a turf of such density as to encourage those who love so to 
do—and many there arc in the world of that disposition—to carve 
their names thereon. Selliera radicans, Cotula dioica (in certain of 
its forms), or the shining green rosettes, flattened close to the ground, 
of the glossy plantain (Plantago Hamiltonii), may in turn be the 
leading species. The lovely white shore-gentian (Gentiana saxosa) 
may dot the meadow everywhere. Soft cushions of the shore- 
eyebright (Huphrasia repens)—balls of snowy whiteness—stand out 
distinctly when in blossom, making a delightful spectacle. There are 
