NEW ZEALAND—EGBERT H, WALKER 325 
Cassinia and tree-daisy (Olearia—Compositae), wild Irishman (Dis- 
caria toumatou—Rhamnaceae—pl. 6, fig. 1), and Myrtus (Myrtaceae), 
though altogether there are about 55 species in 18 families which have 
this divaricating habit. 
The plant collector who makes pressed specimens almost meets his 
Waterloo when he tries to make a herbarium specimen to represent 
adequately such a plant. Some divaricating shrubs further thwart 
the collector by dropping their leaves, flowers, and fruits almost at 
the first gentle touch. The divaricating branches of pohuehue 
(Muehlenbeckia astoni—Polygonaceae) are pliant enough, but when a 
representative specimen has been warped into a plant press there is 
rarely a leaf or fruit left in situ, and a vivid supplementary description 
is needed to bring to the observer’s mind any adequate concept of the 
original habit of the plant. 
One will find various shrub formations in a wide range of habitats. 
Besides the extensive hillside formations of manuka and fern, and the 
subalpine scrub, this type of vegetation is often found on sea coasts 
(both rocky and sandy), wet lands, mineral lands, areas of volcanic 
ash and pumice, and wind-swept shores and mountain slopes. Its 
component species, growth forms, and adaptations to environmental 
conditions are of much interest. In some places associations of trees, 
dwarfed to shrub size by wind, salt spray, or soil influences, resemble 
and merge into shrub formations. 
FORESTS 
The principal natural resource in New Zealand when the pakeha or 
white man first came was its trees; at the present time it is its grass. 
But the white man could live only secondarily on the forest, so the 
trees had to go in order that he might provide for his primary need— 
food. Hence, this natural resource, which formerly covered almost 
the whole of North Island and much of South Island, was sacrificed 
at a rate hardly equaled anywhere else in the world. It took Europe 
four centuries to exploit its forests and America two centuries, but 
New Zealand accomplished this in one century. Although the exten- 
sive natural forests of the past are gone, the remaining fragments are 
sufficient to tell us a great deal about New Zealand’s botanical history. 
According to Cockayne (7), 385 species of plants are characteristic of 
the forests. Of these, 99 are trees, 63 shrubs, 51 herbs, 26 grasslike 
plants, 88 ferns, 26 climbing plants, 15 epiphytes, and 13 parasites. 
Ninety percent are endemics. So it is in the New Zealand forest that 
a visiting botanist will find his greatest delight in becoming acquainted 
with the true New Zealand flora. If he arrives in North Island, as is 
most likely (and much regretted by the people of South Island), his 
first acquaintance will almost surely be with the rain forest, which is 
composed of many species of trees and shrubs of many genera and 
