11 



be seen from the lists given under another head, but their south- 

 ern and their common boundaries require exhaustive study. The 

 same criticism is even more true for the Eastern and Western 

 Districts. Probably the Mackenzie Plains and some of the area 

 adjacent thereto should be added to the North Otago Botanical 

 District. The position of Banks Peninsula is somewhat doubt- 

 ful. Laing 1 1 would include it with the North-eastern District 

 on account of its forest-flora resembling that of the Seaward 

 Kaikoura Mountains rather than that of the foot-hills of 

 the Canterbury Plain. But it must not be forgotten that 

 Nothofagus is an important genus in the upper part of the 

 Kaikoura forest and that the general construction of the latter 

 forest is not similar to that of Banks Peninsula, while the 

 Kaikoura forest contains some species absent on Banks Penin- 

 sula, notably: Astelia Solandri, Melicope ternata, x M. Ralphii 

 and Metrosideros scandens. Also the Podocarpus dacrydioides 

 forest of the Canterbury Plain is similar to that of Banks 

 Peninsula. Be the above as it may, Banks Peninsula should be 

 distinguished from the Eastern Botanical District in general, and 

 made into a subdistrict distinguished by its forest; its local 

 endemism of Anisotome sp. near A. Enysii, Celmisia Mackaui, 

 Senecio saxifragoides, Veronica Lavaudiana and V. leiophylla 

 var. strictissima J 2 ; its being the southern limit on the east of a 

 number of northern New Zealand plants; its luxuriant fields of 

 Dactylis glomerata harvested for seed and its mild climate allow- 

 ing the cultivation of many garden-plants not hardy in the 

 Eastern Botanical District generally. 



3. SOME OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF PLANT- 

 DISTRIBUTION IN NEW ZEALAND. 



(a) Cook Strait not a Barrier to Plant-distribution. 



At first thought it would seem that Cook Strait would have 

 been a barrier to the movements of species, and that the flora 

 and vegetation on its opposite sides would be strikingly dis- 

 similar. So little is this the case, as far as the coastal and 

 lowland vegetation are concerned, that the associations of these 

 areas present no differences of moment. The lowland Notho- 

 fagus forest in the vicinity of the Marlborough Sounds, and near 

 the City of Nelson, strongly resembles that of the eastern side 

 of the Hutt Valley (Wellington). The forest-floras in general 

 are almost identical. To come to a few details: the shore 

 veronica of both areas is Veronica salici folia var. Atkinsonii; 

 Hymenanthera obovata of coastal rocks occurs on both sides 

 of the Strait and also on Kapiti Island; Phormium Colensoi is 

 common on rocks near Island Bay (Wellington) and in a similar 

 situation at Queen Charlotte Sound; Cassinia leptophylla 



11- "The Vegetation of Banks Peninsula, with a List of Species (Flowering- 

 plants and Ferns)." Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. li, 1919, p. 370. 



12 - V. leiophylla Cheesem. var. strictissima (Kirk), Cockayne comb. nov.= 

 V . parviflora Vahl var. strictissima, Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst., 28 (1*96), 527. 



