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to attract attention. Cook Strait is not, as is well known, a barrier 

 for North Island plants ; but there is a considerable number of such 

 species which become rarer as we go south, and finally dwindle out 

 at Banks Peninsula. It is thus the southern limit on the east 

 coast, at least for the nikau-palm (Rhopalostylis sapida), the fcaraka 

 (Corynocarpus laevigata), the pigeon-berry (Hedycarya dentata), the 

 titoki (Alectryon excelsum), and about a dozen other species. 

 Unfortunately, however, the forest which once clothed two-thirds 

 of the peninsula from summit to base has been nearly completely 

 destroyed, and it is now becoming increasingly difficult to see 

 anything of its original glory. There is, indeed, only one spot left 

 where the lower taxad forest can be seen in its primeval beauty. 

 An easy motor run of thirty miles from Christchurch over level roads 

 will take the visitor to Price's' Valley, where there are a few acres 

 of magnificent forest in good preservation. Here will be found huge 

 specimens of black and white pine, with a considerable admixture 

 of totara. The black - pine (matai, Podocarpus spicata) is easily 

 recognized by its brownish - black bark, which is hammer-marked 

 (i.e., covered with circular patches about 2 in. in diameter, which 

 suggest that it has been repeatedly struck by a heavy hammer). Its 

 trunk is tall and straight, and often more than 3 ft. in diameter. 

 The white-pine (kahikatea, P. dacrydioides] is usually more tapering, 

 with rougher, greyer bark, and with even more characteristic 

 hammer-markings than the matai. The totara (P. totara) becomes 

 much more common as we ascend through the forest, and is easily 

 recognized by the long strips of pale-brown bark hanging from a 

 trunk which is more massive even than in the other species, often 

 reaching a diameter of 5 ft., though the tree is usually not so tall 

 as the black or white pine. Many other species of trees are, of course, 

 to be found in this forest, together with a dozen or two different kinds 

 of shrubs and perhaps eight or ten lianes, amongst which Rubus 

 cissoides (a lawyer, well marked by its yellow prickles) here reaches 

 an unusual size, climbing to the tops of the tallest trees. 



Though this taxad forest was dominant on the peninsula, there 

 are remnants near Akaroa of what was probably an earlier forest. 

 On the seaward and eastward side of the Akaroa hills there has 

 stretched at one time, near the summit of the hills, a beech forest 

 consisting chiefly of Nothofagus fusca, but containing also a number 

 of curious variant forms, possibly hybrids between N. fusca and 

 N. Solandri or N. cliff ortioides, of both which latter species a few 

 more or less typical specimens are to be found. This beech forest 

 is of special interest because of its isolation, and because it has 

 apparently been driven seaward by the stronger and more aggressive 

 taxad forest, and would, even perhaps without the intervention of 

 man, have become extinct in a few thousand years. It still contains 

 in places some very fine stands of the magnificent Nothofagus fusca. 



In the centre of the peninsula, on the bald crests of the highest 

 hills, is to be found a somewhat unexpected formation of subalpine 

 plants. This is most easily reached from the Hilltop Hotel, on 

 the Akaroa - Little River Road. A climb of two hours from here 

 will bring the tourist to the summit of Mount Sinclair, where he 

 will find when he comes above the bush-line of mountain totara and 



