FLOWERS OF HIGH-MOUNTAIN PLANTS. 101 
accounted for by the assumption that in New Zealand there was 
a great lack of insects capable of pollinating the flowers, and that 
bright colours can only come into existence through their attract- 
ing insects, for the bright-coloured flowers then would be pollinated, 
bear seed, and reproduce their kind, whereas the duller flowers 
would not be pollinated to the same extent, and in course of time 
would cease to be. 
Here is not the place for supporting or condemning what is at 
best a theory, with much to be said on both sides. One point, 
however, stands out: this is that white flowers are more con- 
spicuous than any others, and that they stand every chance of 
being pollinated by insects, of which the mountains contain an 
abundance, while they can also be seen at night and so be polli- 
nated by moths. They have, in fact, a double advantage over 
blue or red flowers with regard to their chance of pollination by 
insects. 
Coming now to a brief account of the plants with showy flowers : 
The eyebrights (Huphrasia) are real alpine gems (figs. 58, 59). The 
alpine eyebright (Huphrasia Monroi) has rather big flowers, con- 
sidering the size of the plant, white with a yellow eye; the yellow 
eyebright (2. Cockayniana) is yellow; the North Island eyebright 
(EZ. tricolor) has a large flower, white with a yellow throat and 
marked with purple lines—it is a most beautiful feature of Mount 
Egmont and other North Island mountains (fig. 59). Other pretty 
plants of this genus are EH. Cheesemani and the small eyebright 
(EZ. zealandica). The eyebrights are in part parasites, living attached 
to the roots of grasses. This habit renders them exceedingly 
difficult to cultivate. 
To Ourisia, a genus belonging exclusively to South America, 
New Zealand, and Tasmania, belong perhaps the most charming 
of the mountain-plants (fig. 60). The mountain-foxglove (Ouwrisia 
macrophylla) of the North Island and the snowy mountain-foxglove 
(O. macrocarpa) (and its variety calycina) of the South Island are 
the tallest of the New Zealand species, and exceedingly handsome 
plants. O. Cockayniana looks rather like a stunted form of the 
latter, and forms large patches on the wetter mountains of Canter- 
bury and Westland. The creeping mountain-foxglove (O. caespitosa), 
forming glistening bright-green mats on stony ground, is in early 
summer a sheet of lovely blossoms. Also very beautiful are 
O. sessiliflora, O. glandulosa, and O. prorepens. 
