188 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
field. These species number about 32. Several have been described 
in Chapter V when dealing with rock-vegetation, especially Olearia 
insignis, Senecio Monroi, Helichrysum coralloides, Veronica Hulkeana, 
Celmisia Monroi, and Wahlenbergia Matthewsii. Others of special 
interest are the pink broom (Notospartiwm Carmichaeliae), and its 
recently discovered relative, Chordospartiwm Stevenson; Gentiana 
Astoni ; Wahlenbergia cartilaginea (like a European crusty saxifrage) ; 
Veronica rupicola ; Senecio Christensen (probably extremely rare) ; 
and Raoulia cinerea of the shingle-slips. On the wettest mountains 
in the south-west of the district the beautiful white-flowered Gewm 
divergens grows on alpine rocks. The great cushions of the vegetable- 
sheep (Haastia pulvinaris) are most characteristic of this district ; 
so, too, the thickets of Cassinia albida. 
This district is rapidly becoming of peculiar agricultural import- 
ance through the ease with which lucerne can be permanently 
established, there being no need for special effort to keep down 
weeds. Malting barley is grown to a fair extent. Chaff is 
harvested earlier than in any part of New Zealand. Indigenous 
induced danthonia pasture is common. 
The Western Botanical District is readily separated from. the 
North-western Botanical District by the absence of southern-beech 
forest except just where the two districts join and in the extreme 
south, and by the presence of a number of locally endemic plants, 
some of which are widespread —e.g., Celmisia Armstrongu, Ourisia 
macrocarpa var. calycina, Ranunculus Godleyanus, and Carmichaelia 
paludosa. 
The mountain-lily (Ranunculus Lyall) becomes an exceedingly 
characteristic feature of herb-field, and in wet herb-field are great 
colonies of Senecio scorzoneroides. The subalpine forest on the western 
side of the Dividing Range is dominated by the pahau-tea (Libocedrus 
Bidwilliz) (fig. 36) and the mountain-totara (Podocarpus Halli). On 
the eastern side of the Dividing Range the subalpine forest is 
generally of the mountain southern-beech (Nothofagus cliffortioides) 
type, though in certain localities the true western forest occurs near 
the sources of the glacier rivers (fig. 36). 
Dairy-farming is confined to the very best of the land, on account 
of the extreme difficulty of establishing permanent pasture, but cattle 
and sheep are grazed in some of the upland valleys. Paspalum 
and Lotus major are used as pasture plants to some extent. The 
