STATISTICS CONCERNING THE FLORA. 95 
CHAPTER VII. 
THE FLORA AND VEGETATION OF THE HIGH MOUNTAINS. 
General remarks—Statistics dealing with the alpine and lowland floras—Genera 
peculiar to, or common in, the high mountains—Latitudinal distribution of 
the high-mountain flora—The alpine dwellers of Te Moehau—From Mount 
Hikurangi to Egmont and the Tararuas—Distribution in the South Island 
—The altitudinal belts of vegetation and their limits—Conditions of life 
for the high-mountain plant inhabitants—Adaptations of the high-mountain 
plants—The flowers of the high mountains—The eyebrights, ourisias, butter- 
cups, forget-me-nots, celmisias, and edelweiss—High-mountain rock plant- 
associations — The rock-veronicas — The vegetable-sheep — Associations of 
stony debris—A jet-black daisy—Fell-field—The coral-broom—Plants of 
the Mineral Belt—Herb-field—Flowers of Mount Egmont—The subalpine 
scrub—Shrubby veronicas and tree-daisies—High-mountain plants at sea- 
level—Winter coloration. 
To the average New-Zealander the only vegetation with which he is 
acquainted is that of the neighbourhood. of city or village, or such 
as is viewed from the railway-train. Even from the latter, at best, 
he may see some forest—mostly damaged remnants, flax growing 
unnaturally in drained swamps, or, if he travel by the Main Trunk 
or Midland railways, a fair amount of tussock-grassland. Even 
if acquainted with all the lowland vegetation, no one not in the 
secret could guess that on the high mountains there existed a floral 
world very different from that of everyday New Zealand, or, indeed, 
from that of any other land. But a few figures quickly show this 
to be the case. Thus a careful comparison of the lowland and 
high-mountain plants brings out the fact that there are about 520 
purely lowland species (not counting those confined to the coast- 
line), and rather more than 500 species which belong exclusively to 
the high mountains. In addition, the flora of the latter is strongly 
reinforced by about 100 species which occur in the lowlands under 
special circumstances only, so that there is virtually a true sub- 
alpine and alpine flora of about 600 species, which belong to 45 
families and 123 genera. In addition, there are about 350 species 
found both in the lowlands and the high mountains. The whole high- 
mountain flora, then, contains about 950 species. How specially a 
New Zealand production is this flora is emphasized by the fact that 
