JUNE. 113 



tend to make the hills into permanent dry land. They are 

 commonly plants with a wide geographical range, though 

 locally their distribution is so limited. For instance, there 

 is the common Euphorbia glauca, or Caper Spurge, which 

 is found on all the sandhills from Stewart Island to North 

 Cape. Like all its immediate allies, it is a plant which 

 contains a great quantity of milky juice, which oozes out 

 in large drops wherever the surface is broken. This latex, 

 as botanists call it, is no doubt partly a store of food 

 material laid up by the plant for future use. It is also 

 a most effective protection against enemies of all kinds, 

 for it is extremely acrid. If a little drop be placed on the 

 tongue, a burning sensation will be produced in the mouth 

 and will remain for two or three hours afterwards. 



Another plant only found on the sandhills, and, like the 

 Et(pJiorbi((, also confined to New Zealand, where it ranges 

 the whole length of the coast line, is the large hard 

 yellowish-brown sedge or cutting-grass technically known 

 as Desnwschcenus spiralis.* It is perhaps unfortunate that 

 so few of our plants have simple common names by which 

 they can be distinguished. Desinoschcenus is quite a 

 peculiar plant in its habit and appearance, and gets its 

 specific name from the partial curving of its flowering 

 stem, which gives it something of a spiral twist. It is one 

 of the most efficient sand-binders we possess. Its hardness 

 is probably just as protective as the milky juice of the 

 h'lijj/idi'bid, while its harsh cutting edges prevent its being 

 handled with impunity. Seaside plants as a rule are 

 either hard and dry or thick and spongy in their texture. 

 Their surfaces are not furnished with so great a number 

 of breathing pores, or stomata, as we find in ordinary 

 green plants which grow away from the neighbourhood 

 of the sea, and in consequence they do not evaporate 

 water so rapidly from their foliage and stems. One has 

 just to think of the thick-leaved ferns (Aspleniiun), the 

 native celery, the fig marigold or Mesembryantheiniun, 

 and the pretty lilac-flowered convolvulus (C. soldanella), 



* In Cheeseman's Flora this species is referred to 



Scirpus frottdosus. 

 H 



