THE SHRUBS AND HERBACEOUS PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 23 
It has been said the New Zealand Bush is sombre. Not so when 
the sun, in its east to north morning course, strikes full upon the 
scene. Varying shades of green, graceful shapes of foliage and 
unique contour of branch and stem prevail. Tree ferns thrust their 
crowns of sweeping fronds through the other foliage twenty or 
thirty feet high. 
If the time be September, the earliest spring blossom is the white 
clematis (C. indivisa 21, 22). If later in the season the rata (Metro- 
sideros lucida, 5) will reflect its hanging crimson flowers in the 
glassy waters of the Sound. Still later the scarlet loranthus (L. 
colensoi) adorns the branches of its host (Northofagus, 4) along the 
hill sides. 
On the ridges of spurs where the soil is poor, two members of 
Myrtacez thrive, viz., Manuka rauriki and the ti-tree (Leptospermum). 
Both emit the myrtle odour, and individual flowers of the latter, the 
size of the English white thorn, are as beautiful. Generally sterile 
beneath, the soil, nevertheless, shelters three terrestrial orchids, 
Pterostylis banksii (15), Microtis porrifolia—both green—and the 
waxy white Thelymetra longifolia, the commonest New Zealand 
orchid. Besides these the interminable wiry stems and leaves of 
Lycopodium  ballardieri (25), and a small fern (Asplenium 
flabellifolium, 23) find congenial sanctuary. 
Other shrubs of the myrtle genus are the creeping rata (M. 
scandens) clinging to old tree stumps, and crowning them with white 
blossom ; and a bush with reddish brown scented leaves, and similar 
white myrtle flowers known as rama rama (M. bullata, 6). 
One of the ratas, starting life as an epiphyte, embraces and 
strangles its host, while sending down roots and establishing an 
independent forest tree (M. robusta). 
If near the sea, the ridge is covered with the hoary foliaged 
cassinia (C. leptophylla) one of the banes of the settler, because of 
its rapid diffusion by wind carried seed. 
In the little cove, bounded by two manuka ridges, is a rippling 
brooklet emptying itself into the Sound. Close to the edge of the 
tide-swept beach of golden quartz pebbles, the karaka (Corynocarpus 
levigata) flourishes. It is the much loved fruit of the Maori and 
almost ‘“‘tapu’”’ or sacred. It is one of the mango family, its drupes 
