PLATE 87.—OLEARIA CHATHAMICA. 
Famity COMPOSIT/. | [Genus OLEARIA, Mancu. 
Olearia chathamica, 7. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii (1891), 444; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. 
Fl. 280. 
This handsome plant was first observed during Mr. H. H. Travers’s first 
visit to the Chatham Islands in the year 1863. The late Baron Mueller, who 
dealt with Mr. Travers’s collections in his little book on the ‘* Vegetation of the 
Chatham Islands,” did not separate it as a species from O. semidentata, although 
he admitted (p. 22) that it differed in its “ blunt-toothed larger leaves attenuated 
more distinctly into a broad petiole” and in the larger heads. Sir J. D. 
Hooker, in the Appendix to the ‘“* Handbook” (p. 731), referred it to O. operina, 
characterizing it as a “form with lax bracts on the scapes, thus connecting it 
with O. angustifolia.” In 1871 Mr. Travers paid a second visit to the islands, 
when the plant was again collected. Mr. Buchanan, in his memoir on ‘“ The 
Flowering-plants and Ferns of the Chatham Islands” (Trans. N.Z. Inst. vii 
(1875), 332-41) treated it as a variety of O. angustifolia. It was not until 
the publication of Mr. Kirk’s paper on the ‘‘ Macrocephalous Olearias of New 
Zealand” (l.¢., xxii (1891), 443) that the rank of a distinct species was given 
to it. Although closely allied to both O. operina and O. angustifolia, it is 
sufficiently distinct in its broader leaves, much more slender peduncles, and in 
the fewer linear bracts. Its differences from O. semidentata have already been 
pointed out under that species. 
Dr. Cockayne, in his account of the vegetation of the Chatham Islands 
(Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxiv (1902), 297-98) states that Olearia chathamica “is almost 
exclusively confined to the dryer ground just at the edge of the cliffs, in which 
places O. semidentata is not abundant. Here it forms dense thickets, unmixed 
for the most part with any other shrubs; or, if growing more in the open, 
each plant forms a large rounded bush. The branches radiate upwards and 
outwards from usually several short thick main stems, and are leafy only at 
their extremities for a distance of about 18cm. or so. Their ultimate branches 
are covered with dense white pubescence. The leaves vary in shape, some 
being merely lanceolate, but others much broader.” “There is at the present 
time a distinct zone of O. chathamica extending for a distance of 12m. or more 
along the south cliffs of Chatham Islands, and following the dry ridges inland, 
but usually only for a short distance; and there are no traces of this formation 
elsewhere in the islands, except that an isolated plant or two have been found 
on his run by Mr. Cox. In the north of the islands O. chathamica is altogether 
absent.” 
As mentioned in my account of the previous plate, O. chathamica usually 
has white ray-florets. I am indebted to Mr. Cox, however, for specimens of a 
purple-flowered variety; and, according to Dr. Cockayne, a similar form was 
collected on the adjacent Pitt Island by Professor Dendy. 
Puate 87. Olearia chathamica, drawn from specimens collected in the Chatham Islands by 
Mr. F. A. D. Cox. Fig. 1, outer bracts of the involucre (x 4); 2, inner bracts of the same (x 4) ; 
3, ray-floret (x 4); 4, pappus-hairs (x 10); 5, disc-floret (x 4); 6, anther (x 10); 7, style-arms 
(x 12). 
