Ecological Botany.'] 



SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



221 



Quite confined to this formation is Marsippospermum gracile, the erect, terete, 

 slender leaves crowded together, reddish-brown in colour, or in some places green, 

 and forming sometimes pure masses some square metres in extent, or at other times 

 growing amongst and through the Celmisia cushions, the gentian, and the Ranunculus. 



The following plants are frequently important members of the formation : 

 Gentiana cerina, Ahrotandla spathulata, Phyllachne clavigera, Luzula crinita, Coprosma 

 repens, Agrostis magellanica, Veronica Benthami, an occasional stunted Danthonia 

 antarctica, small Aciphylla antipoda, Stilhocarpa polaris, Pleurophyllum speciosum, 

 and Aciphylla latifolia, but the latter three much dwarfed. 



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Flo. 13. — Ukskhai. \ ikw dk I'leiiniphijUiim Hankeii FniiMATioN, Soith of Aitki-ami Isi./.mi. 



There is no other formation in New Zealand that can be exactly compared 

 with this. The stony substratum at once recalls the shingle slips of the Southern 

 Alps ; but in these islands the superabundant moisture, and the peat-making habit of 

 the plants conditional thereon, does away altogether with the need for " shingle-slip 

 adaptations," and special wind-resisting power, here attained by lowness of stature, 

 cushion form, and creeping habit, is the chief desideratum. 



(ix.) Poa litorosa Formation. 

 On Disappointment Island, and to a limited extent so far as I observed on Auck- 

 land Island, is a meadow of Poa litorosa, and in some places P. foliosa, similar to that 

 of the Snares, Antipodes, and Campbell Islands in its general physiognomy. The 



