NEW VEGETATION AFTER THE TARAWERA ERUPTION. ria 
plants are wanting, and some peculiar to the area, or nearly so, 
appear. Here is that exquisite shrub the niniwa (Gaultheria oppositi- 
folia), with a profusion of flowers like a glorified lily of the valley. 
Here also is a peculiar brownish-leaved erect shrub of the heath 
family, the monoao (Dracophyllum subulatum), usually a sign of very 
bad land. Manuka is, of course, in abundance as usual. There is 
sometimes a good deal of the mountain-flax (Phormiwm Colensot). 
In 1886 the eruption of Tarawera led to the burying of large 
areas of this plant-association by volcanic ash. So thickly did this 
fall that in some places an actual new land-surface was formed for 
repopulation (figs 45, 46). This was of great interest, since oppor- 
tunities for observing the settlement of a large area of virgin soil 
under natural conditions are rarely afforded ; and in this case there 
is a clue to what may have taken place long ago in the evolution 
of the plant-covering of the adjacent country. 
Where the heath was but thinly covered with ashes it reappeared 
almost in its original form; but where the covering was many feet 
in depth there is quite a different story. Very shortly after the 
eruption heavy rain occurred, and the comparatively loose soil was 
cut into innumerable deep but narrow gullies, with many lateral 
ones opening into them. The sharp ridges between these gullies 
are bare, but on their sides wave masses of toetoe-grass (Arundo 
conspicua), a plant not very abundant in the adjacent shrubland 
(fig. 44). The “seeds” of this grass would, of course, be brought 
by the wind. Another common member of the new society is the 
tutu (Coriaria sarmentosa) (fig. 46), its “seeds,” of course, having 
been brought by birds from the plants of the adjacent heath, where 
it is a common plant. 
On Tarawera itself and its immediate neighbourhood multitudes 
of the flat silvery cushions of a variety of the common raoulia 
(Raoulia australis) have occupied the ground, thanks to their easy 
distribution through wind-blown ‘‘seeds,” and, in addition, the 
absence of competition with other plants. Exactly the same thing 
has happened on the man-made desert of Central Otago and in parts 
of Marlborough. It is of special interest that, notwithstanding the 
general belief that seeds are readily carried long distances by the 
wind and by birds, all the Tarawera colonists have come from the 
immediate neighbourhood—they have simply “increased their hold- 
ings.” But, as might well be expected, a large majority of the 
