NOTES ON SOME PLANTS OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND. 203 
9. Genus TARAXACUM. 
T. Dens-leonis, Desf. (T. officinale, Fl. N. Z. 
Major forms; uplands about Fairfield, Saddlehill. Common : ap- 
parently our ordinary British plant. Tuapeka ranges, flowering stem 
4—5 inches high,—a modification of the type. L. 
Minor form (var. pygmea, Fl. N. Z.): uod dunes, Greenisland 
coast : November, in flower, W. L. L. Closely resembling our British 
var. palustre, DC., as it frequently grows in Scotland on moorlands. 
Leaf varies from sinuate to pinnatifid on same plant : subspathulate, 
25 inches long, by 4—4 inch broad ; sometime subacute at tip. Scape 
only 1-14 inch long, glabrous. Involucral scales not thickened at tip. 
My plant corresponds with Fifeshire specimens of var. 8. levigatum in 
my British herbarium [Hill pastures, No. Queensferry] rather than 
with my British forms of var. palustre, De Cand., which has much 
broader, more entire, and more rounded, larger leaves. Levigatum 
is, however, larger in its scape and leaves, which are also more divided. 
The plant has, undoubtedly, been also inéroduced, and is one of 
those hardy immigrants, which, like various of the natural and arti- 
ficial grasses, so-called, of Britain, are rapidly overrunning Otago, dis- 
placing and replacing much of its indigenous herbaceous vegetation. 
I do not believe it possible to distinguish the native from the intro- 
duced plant. Dr. Hooker refers the dwarf mountain forms to the 
indigenous, and the larger, luxuriant, succulent forms (as abundant in 
Otago as at home, on the waste ground surrounding dwellings or 
. towns) to the alien or introduced plant. In the Handbook (165) he 
speaks of the former as “ certainly indigenous;" but I do not admit 
the certainty of the conclusion, or, if I did, I should find it impossible 
to admit, with Dr. Hooker, that various British introduced weeds could 
occur at considerable elevations* on the alps, very remote from pastur- 
ages or settlements of any kind (e.g. Keleria cristata at 4000 feet on 
the Canterbury Alps). 
10. Genus SONCHUS. 
S. oleraceus, L. Fairfield uplands; common. Shrubby and much 
branched; about 1 foot high.  Seaward or exposed edge of Green- 
sem | Bush; e common ; also shrubby, but dwarfed ; while on the 
Paper “ On One Glumacee,” Transactions of Botanical So- 
sy d Rios. vol. ix. p. 6 
