PLATE 121.—WAHLENBERGIA SAXICOLA. 
Famity CAMPANULACEZ. | [Genus WAHLENBERGIA, Scrap. 
Wahlenbergia saxicola, 4. D.C. Monog. Camp. 144; Hook }. Fl. Nov. Zel. i, 160; Cheesem. 
Man. N.Z. Fl. 402. 
Waklenbergia saxicola was originally discovered by the illustrious botanist 
Robert Brown on, the summit of Mount Wellington, Tasmania, in the year 1804. 
At what time it was first gathered in New Zealand is a little uncertain, the earliest 
record that I can find dating back no further than 1839, when it was collected 
on Tongariro by Mr. J. C. Bidwill, who in 1844 also observed it near Nelson. 
Mr. Colenso apparently did not gather it until his first journey to the Ruahine Range 
in 1845. Considering how common the plant is in the South Island it is somewhat 
curious that Banks and Solander did not observe it in Queen Charlotte Sound, 
and that it was not collected either by Forster in Dusky Bay or by Raoul at 
Akaroa. It is now known to be a common mountain-species almost anywhere to 
the south of a line drawn from Mount Egmont to the East Cape. In the South 
Island it frequently descends to sea-level, while a small blue-flowered variety 
ascends to a height of 6,000 ft. on the mountains of Nelson and Canterbury. It 
attains its southern limit at sea-level on Stewart Island. 
W. saxicola is closely allied to W. gracilis, although the extreme forms of 
the two plants are very diverse. W. saxicola, in its best-developed state, has very 
short often quite simple stems, which bear a rosette of crowded spreading leaves 
just above the ground. From among the leaves rises a slender scape, which bears 
a solitary flower sometimes as much as an inch in diameter. Occasionally the 
rootstock is branched, or puts out creeping stolons, but these usually end in a 
tuft of rosulate leaves and a solitary scape, as in the first form. In small 
mountain states the rootstock is much branched, with the branches leafy at 
their tips, sometimes forming compact patches several inches in diameter. A 
very similar form, but much larger in all its parts, forms densely matted patches 
on sand-dunes near Cape Foulwind, near Westport. W. gracilis has slender 
branched stems sometimes a couple of feet in length, and the leaves are never 
rosulate, but scattered irregularly along the stem and its branches. 
PratE 121. Wahlenbergia saxicola, drawn from specimens collected in the Wairau Valley, Nelson, 
at an altitude of 1,800 ft. Fig. 1, longitudinal section of flower (x 3); 2, stamen, showing the dilated 
base of the filament (x 5); 3, two-lobed stigma (x 6); 4, transverse section of ovary (x 5); 5, ripe 
capsule (x 5). 
