PLATE 103.—RAOULIA EXIMIA. 
Famity COMPOSIT.] [Genus RAOULIA, Hook. r. 
Raoulia eximia, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 149; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. 332. 
Raoulia eximia, which is one of the most remarkable plants in the New 
Zealand flora, became known to Kuropeans as soon as sheep-farming penetrated 
into the Southern Alps. Together with Haastia puluinaris, it soon received 
the familiar title of “ vegetable sheep,” a name the aptness of which will be 
admitted by every one who has seen the huge woolly cushion-shaped masses 
which the two plants form on steep rocky slopes. When seen from a little 
distance the resemblance of these to a flock of sheep is very striking indeed. 
Our species was first made known to botanical science by Dr. Sinclair and 
Sir Juluis von Haast, who collected it in the Upper Rangitata district in 1861 ; 
but it was soon found to be plentiful on all the higher rocky mountains of 
the Alps, from north-west Nelson to the south-west of Otago. It is always 
a high alpine, seldom seen below 4,000 ft., and ascending to quite 6,500 ft. 
in the Mount Cook district. It is usually found on bare wind-swept rocky 
slopes, or on the craggy crests of steep ridges. Occasionally it may be seen 
on little patches of rock surrounded by shingle-slopes; but, as Dr. Cockayne 
has correctly observed, it cannot be regarded as a true shingle-slip plant. 
The cushions of Raoulia eximia are often of considerable size, sometimes 
nearly 4 {t. in diameter. The surface is quite hard and solid, and consists of 
the tips of the branchlets and their leaves, so closely compacted as to 
mutually press against each other, the interior of the plant being altogether 
hidden. If such a cushion is broken open—and it takes no small amount of 
force to do this—it will be seen that there is a central hard and woody 
stem of some little size, proceeding from a stout and deep-seated root. This 
stem gives off lateral branches, which towards their tips are repeatedly 
branched, giving rise to the leafy shoots which constitute the surface. Living 
leaves are only present towards the outside of the cushion, but below that 
the interior is largely composed of the dead and decaying remains of previous 
shoots and their leaves, all densely compacted into a perpetually moist peat- 
like substance often penetrated by adventitious rootlets from the younger 
shoots. In this respect the plant agrees with many other cushion-plants, both 
in New Zealand and elsewhere. One of the first references made to this 
peculiarity is that of Sir J. D. Hooker in the “Flora Antarctica ” (vol. u, 
p. 286), where, speaking of the very remarkable Azorella cespitosa (Bolax 
glebaria), which has a very similar habit to that of R. eximia, he states that 
the original root has become insufficient for the wants of the plant, and that 
the branchlets are nourished by “fibrous radicles, proceeding from below the 
leaves, and deriving nutriment from the quantity of vegetable matter which 
the decayed foliage of the lower part of the stem and other branches affords.” 
R. eximia falls into that division of the genus Raoulia to which the name 
Imbricaria was applied by Mr. Bentham in the “Genera Plantarum.” As 
mentioned under the previous plate, it has long been suspected that the 
section was entitled to generic distinction, but until quite lately no botanist 
had made a careful investigation of the case. This has now been done by 
M. Gustave Beauverd, the well - known keeper of the Boissier Herbarium. 
As the result of a very complete and painstaking inquiry, published in the 
“Bulletin of the Botanical Society of Geneva” for 1910 (pp. 207-253), he has 
