Ecological Botany.] 



SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



233 



latter are abandoned, and new ground is ready for plant-colonisation. This is 

 evidently a fairly rapid process. The first plant to settle down on the wet and 

 heavily manured ground, with its guano, feathers, and rotted birds and eggs, is the 

 succulent-leaved Crassula moschata* which soon may form great patches 3 m. or 4 m. 

 across. Where the ground is wet and strongly manured this plant grows with an 

 astonishing luxuriance. Occasionally there may be a cushion or two of the coastal - 

 rock plant Colobanthus muscoides.f Then, as the manure becomes less powerful, 



Fig. 17.— Tknoi'in Kuokeuv on the Snauks kiij.i.nu iiik Vjioktation. 

 Tussock meadow in front, Olearia I,yaUii forest in background. 



the grass Poa foliosa gains a footing, and in course of time there is once more a 

 meadow. 



If the enormous number of penguins be taken into consideration, there can be 

 little doubt that through their agency the plant-covering of the Snares has been 



* Nonnally a halophyte. 



f This is an excellent example of a plant apparently limited (o and specially adapted for nn 

 abnormal station being able to establish itself under absolutely different circumstances, which, also ab 

 normal, and severe in a quite different direction, at first forbid the presence of other plants, but which 

 latter, arriving as the conditions become normal, quickly oust the plant in question, not because its 

 life-form is unsuitable, but because the new-comers are more in harmony with the environment, and 

 yet have not nearly the capability for enduring extremes as the plant which they replace. 



