44. NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
The flower-stalk is branched, pendulous, and more than 10 inches 
long, and, strange to relate, it is given off not, as one would 
reasonably expect, from the twigs, but from the actual naked trunk 
of the tree. The flowers, waxy-white in colour, are produced only in 
the winter. The species belongs to the same family as the tropical 
mahogany, the satinwood, and the Australian cedar. The genus is 
Asiatic, Polynesian, Malayan, and Australian. 
On Stephen Island, in Cook Strait, doubly famous as the home 
of the tuatara lizard (the last representative of an otherwise long- 
vanished race) and of a second New Zealand frog, is a piece of the 
forest under consideration. Now, on that islet can be seen every 
stage of human interference with the “forest primeval” to its 
replacement by a cabbage-garden, a most necessary adjunct to a 
lighthouse-keeper’s home. This forest is quite a remarkable one, and, 
from what has gone before, it seems clear enough that such portion 
as still remains should be preserved from further destruction. It 
consists, besides the kohekohe (Dysoxylum spectabile), of the large- 
leaved milk-tree (Paratrophis opaca), the kawakawa (Macropuper 
excelsum), and the nikau-palm (Rhopalostylis sapida). The trees are 
stunted, some of them have many spreading branches (fig. 24), 
and are garlanded by that most elegant of climbing-ferns, the 
climbing hard-fern (Blechnum filiforme). 
A remnant of a coastal forest which has disappeared through 
natural means is found on the Open Bay Islands, which lie off the 
coast of south Westland. It would be an unpleasant experience to 
pass a night there, since in their peaty soil, honeycombed by the 
holes of petrels, veritable leeches and wetas of huge size and formid- 
able aspect abound. The vegetation of the largest island consists of 
an impenetrable scrub of kiekie (Freycinetia Banksw), one of the 
last survivors of a forest which must have clothed these islands long 
ago, when connected with the mainland of Westland. At that time 
the area of the forest would be sufficient to secure it from damage by 
wind; but as the land gradually shrank in size, so would the forest 
be more and more exposed until the sole survivors would be those 
plants which could tolerate the most wind. 
Only a brief reference can be made to the Poor Knights Islands, 
visited some years ago for the first time by Captain Bollons and the 
author, where the big snail, Placostylus Hongii, is still abundant ; 
where the arborescent vegetation consists largely of a large-leaved 
