I2O A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



lishmeiit one of those useful abominations is located at 

 its head waters, and the brook is now about as uninviting 

 as the Kaikorai Stream itself below Burnside. The bush 

 in this gully was quite a noted collecting ground. Here 

 grew the delicate little Cystopteris frag His a fern which 

 is common enough in many parts of the world, but is not 

 found, or at least not known to occur, elsewhere in any 

 part of this neighbourhood. Here also were recorded the 

 only local examples of two North Island species of hina- 

 hina Melicytus tiiacrophyllus and J/. lanceolatus but 

 both seem to have disappeared, though the latter form 

 is still to be met with in the West Taieri bush. 



The Belt itself has lost many of its less hardy natives, 

 choked out in all likelihood by stronger and coarser aliens. 

 Patches of the remarkable grey and green mottled orchid 

 (Gustrodiaj, whose colour suggests that it probably grows 

 in decaying organic matter, used to be common in the 

 bush. Native myrtle, the heart-shaped leaf of which gives 

 it its name of Myrtus obcordatus, formerly grew on the 

 slopes behind Royal Terrace. Here also one often came 

 across the fronds of the moon wort ( Botrychiuiii), that odd 

 fern which puts up only one frond each year, though it has 

 been maturing it for three years underground. On the 

 grassy ground, before coarser vegetation choked it, were to 

 be seen the delicate little green fronds of the adder' s- 

 tongue fern (Ophloglossumj. 



On many a rocky cliff for example, where the Ander- 

 son's Bay road winds round just beyond Musselburgh 

 grew patches of Angelica, more commonly known as 

 "anise," but these have either been eaten out by cattle or 

 have been choked out by hardier plants. All sorts of stock 

 eat the "anise," and rabbits are very fond of it, so that it 

 is not to be wondered at if the plant disappears from many 

 parts of Otago. But where nothing can get at it it still 

 thrives. There is a shelf of rock on the Main South Road 

 just beyond Look-out Point, inaccessible for animals from 

 above and out of the reach of men from below ; on this up 

 till a short time ago ' ' anise " was always to be found. 

 On drier and more exposed localities, like the cliffs above 



