Chapter XIX. 



THE NON- FLORALS. 



There are a great many plants which have no flowers or 

 only very primitive ones, and therefore do not exactly 

 come within the scope of this work, still they deserve 

 some slight record. (The Pine family, unfortunately for 

 us, does not form forests of timber trees, as it does in many 

 parts of the globe, but we possess some most interesting 

 species from a scientific point of view.\? Most of our Pines 

 are vestiges of a bye-gone age. ^Huon Pine, which lives 

 only in wet parts of our ever mfbist west, produces wood 

 of a superlative character.) King William, which yields 

 one of the lightest woods in the world, belongs to a passing 

 away genus. Its only relatives to be found to-day are 

 one in the dismal swamp of America, one in Japan, and 

 two, Mammoth Tree and Kedwood, north of California. 



The Club Mosses are unfortunately named, as they are 

 not at all related to mosses. It is better to call them 

 (Lycopods, and recognise that they are more related to the 

 Tines. They appear to be dwarfed descendants of the 

 vegetation of the coal measures.) 



Two plants placed in this group chiefly because they 

 will not fit in anywhere else are of exceptional interest. 

 They are Quillwort and Tmesipteris. (_ Quillwort is com- 

 mon in our lakes, and has leaves like a porcupine's quills.) 

 It is widely distributed throughout the world. Being a 

 water-plant it is carried about by migratory birds. It is 

 apparently a direct descendant of the Lepidodendrons of 

 the very ancient earth. Tmesipteris, which has no com- 

 mon name, is found occasionally on the trunks of tree- 

 ferns. It is confined to Australia and Southern Pacific, 

 and prftbably is one of the only remaining relatives of the 

 equally ancient Sphenophylls. 



^Tasmania is well off for ferns, possessing nearly eighty 

 species) Good as this is, New Zealand has about twice 

 as many. The typical fern is probably not a very old 

 type ; there are perhaps more species existing in the pre- 

 sent day than at any other period. The fern -like leaves 

 of the coal measures appear to have belonged to a group 

 of plants, the precursors of the seed-bearing plants.; Of 

 the moss group there are in Tasmania about three hundred 

 and fifty true mosses, and about three hundred Liver- 



