Ecological Botany.] SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 203 



marked as in (1) ; (3) almost pure white ; (4) violet over most of under-surface of 

 leaf, and white upper surface marked with rather brighter lines of same colour ; 

 (5) crimson on under-surface, and upper surface a pale-purple ground-colour marked 

 with crimson lines. All the above variations were observed in plants growing side 

 by side in an exposed situation near the western entrance to Carnley Harbour, on 

 Adams Island. A sixth variation, but noted in a specimen from another locality, 

 was : Ground-colour rosy lilac, deeply marked at base with bright purple, which 

 was continued in thin lines to the apex of the leaf. 



Veronica Benthami is normally blue. One or two white -flowered plants were 

 noted, and one plant having the flowers rosy-purple or almost carmine when just 

 opening, and fading to a paler colour when fully expanded, on the outer parts of 

 the corolla. Celmisia vernicosa has normally a purple disc and white ray-florets, 

 but a variety is fairly common with the rays also purple. Aciphylla latifolia is 

 normally rosy lilac, but occasionally white flowers occur. Myosotis capitata in 

 Fairchild's Garden appeared to be bluish-purple, and not brilliant dark blue as at 

 the higher levels. 



(G.) HETEROPHYLLY. 



Another kind of variation is where more than one very distinct form of leaf 

 occurs on the same plant. Polypodium diversifolium has a marked leaf -variation, 

 some leaves being entire and others more or less deeply and irregularly cut. They 

 also vary greatly in width and in the number and shape of the leaf-segments. These 

 variations seem quite without rule, and without reference to the environment. This 

 is quite a different heterophylly to that where the seedling and adult leaf-forms 

 are distinct from one another, and especially where the juvenile form remains 

 persistent for a number of years. Of such variation, so common in New Zealand 

 generally, there are only a few examples in the subantarctic province. 



The juvenile form of Dracophyllum longifolium persists, at any rate in many 

 instances, until the plant is 3-6 m. tall, or even taller. The juvenile leaves differ 

 from the adult in that they are much broader, while the blade is not held vertically, 

 but horizontally. These wide leaves and their orientation not only give the young 

 plants a most distinct appearance, but they are ecologically different from the adult. 

 Frequently a tree is adult in its upper and juvenile in its lower parts. 



Nolhopanax simplex, with which I have already dealt on several occasions, is 

 especially noteworthy, as in the Auckland Islands it very rarely indeed has the cut- 

 leaved seedling form ; nor has an extreme case of such been recorded, as is so com- 

 mon in the subalpine forests of the central and southern floristic provinces of New 

 Zealand. In the Auckland Islands the seedling has first of all simple leaves, variable 

 in shape and in size and number of teeth. Then may come the first stage of a com- 

 pound leaf, with one full-sized and one minute leaflet at the base. Finally, trifoliate 

 leaves appear, with the ultimate leaflet the largest. The adult leaves are simple 

 and toothed, but vary a good deal in size, thickness, and so on. The climate should 

 favour the cut-leaved form, since this is at its maximum development in the wettest 

 forests, and, as I have shown elsewhere, the occasionally pinnatifid juvenile leaflets 

 of the related Schefllera digitata are associated with specially moist soil-conditions.* 



* " Report on a Botanical Survey of the Waipoua Kauri Forest," p. 28 ; 1908. 



