56 My New Zealand Garden 



It has been seen with forty blossoms, each as large 

 as a half-crown, and of the purest white. The 

 stem grows 2 or 3 feet high, and has several 

 blossoms on each stem, which almost present the 

 appearance of a bunch of Water Lilies. My plants 

 soon became small, for their wants are too difficult 

 to supply, requiring as they do the two extremes 

 of heat and cold. The yellow one, R. insignis, went 

 the same way. It is rather tantalizing to think of 

 these magnificent plants blooming away in their 

 almost inaccessible home. 



In Rotorua, near Auckland, there are to be 

 seen some sights of a very different nature, which 

 are no less than geysers of boiling mud and boil- 

 ing holes of mud, which in their spasmodic con- 

 vulsions frighten tourists, and add considerably to 

 their pleasure and excitement. Besides, the crust 

 of earth on which one walks between and round 

 about these sights is so thin in places that one 

 has to step with care. It sounds too risky to be 

 pleasant, but accidents seem very seldom to occur. 

 I should, however, take care to secure a light- 

 weight companion for that expedition. 



About this district lives, or is supposed to live, 

 our greatest insect curiosity. It is called the 

 Vegetable Caterpillar. The specimens that I have 

 seen were large, dead Caterpillars, with apparently 

 the root of a shrub protruding from the region 

 of the tail. This outgrowth is pronounced by 



