1s BY NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
places where it is impossible to crawl on one’s hands and knees 
beneath the close mass the only alternative is to walk upon the top. 
At first sight it might seem that such plants would be worthless 
for garden purposes, and yet in that regard they are the very élite 
of the New Zealand flora. The scrubs of the montane and sub- 
alpine river-beds, moraines, and terraces may also be included here. 
These latter scrubs are the headquarters of the shrubby koromikos 
(Veronica). Here is the cypress-koromiko (Veronica cwpressoides), 
named most fittingly, for no one seeing it for the first time and 
out of bloom could dream it was not a cypress. Other veronicas 
met with here are—V. buxifolia var. odora, forming shining green 
bushes, round as a cricket-ball; V. Traverstvi, which is of similar 
habit, but with much less glossy foliage; V. glaucophylla, with sage- 
green leaves; V. subalpina, an early-blooming species with bright-green 
leaves; V. monticola; V. vernicosa—indeed, there is a superabundance 
of species, many of which strongly resemble one another. 
Tree-daisies (Olearia) are much in evidence. The following may 
be noted: The native holly (O. ¢licifolia), with musk-scented prickly 
crinkled leaves; the false mountain-holly (£. macrodonta), somewhat 
like the above, but with broader and greener leaves; the small- 
leaved tree-daisy (O. nummularifolia), with small hard and leathery 
leaves; the boat-leaved tree-daisy (O. cymbifolia), similar to the 
last-mentioned, but with the margins of the leaves much recurved ; 
the musky tree-daisy (O. moschata), after the manner of O. nummu- 
larvfolia, but with larger and paler-coloured leaves; the glossy tree- 
daisy (O. arborescens), with rather large glossy leaves, covered on 
the under-surface with a shining mat of hair; and the large-leaved 
tree-daisy (O. Colensoi), with thick rather large leaves, much 
toothed, and covered beneath with a thick mat of white hairs. The 
remarkable O. lacunosa, with its leaves rather like those of a 
juvenile lancewood, and its relative O. excorticata, with broader and 
shorter leaves, are rarer, being confined to the Tararua Mountains in 
the North Island, and to the north-west and west of the South Island. 
There is also a true lancewood (Pseudopanax lineare). This, like 
its well-known relative of the forest, P. crassifolium var. unifoliatum, 
has also long narrow juvenile leaves, but instead of turning them 
downwards, as in the case of the latter species, they are held erect. 
Other plants of the daisy family forming scrubs are the cottonwoods 
C. Vauvilliersii, C. fulvida var. montana, and C. albida, the first two 
