398 _ Transactions.— Botany. 
Art. XLIII.—Campbell Island and its Flora. By J. Bucuanan, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 13th February, 1884.] 
Plate XXXVII 
In December last, the colonial s.s. ** Stella” being ordered to Campbell 
Island in search of lost seamen, an opportunity was offered to procure a 
collection of live plants for the various botanical gardens, and also to make 
an herbarium collection for the Musenm. Having been instructed to under- 
take the duty, and being granted the privilege of a passage by the Marine 
Department, I provided myself with abundance of paper for plant-drying 
purposes, carefully packed in a tin box, and other necessaries for plant- 
collecting. After a favourable passage of three days, Campbell Island was 
sighted in the early morning of 20th December. This island, as stated 
in Ross's Voyage, is in lat. 524 South and long. 169° East. It was first 
discovered by Frederick Hazelberg in 1810; it is thirty milgs in circum- 
ference ; when approached from the north, it presents a precipitous rocky 
coast, without any apparent landing-place. As the morning mists lifted and 
cleared away, numerous outlying rocks and little islands came into view 
swarming with flocks of sea-fowl, the whole offering to the artist picture- 
subjects of great beauty. The accompanying sketch (No. 1., pl. xxxviii.) 
presents a morning scene from the north-east. 
The higher coast-lands show rough broken trachy-dolerite precipices, 
the haunt of sea-fowl, the snowy appearance of the hill ridges being due to 
innumerable birds (chiefly the albatross) nesting. The rock sections seen 
in the sea-clifís have a peculiar red lined character, produced by the contact 
of alternate layers of clays or soils with lava beds, thus presenting remark- 
able parallel red lines on a dark groundwork of trachy-dolerite. The whole 
coast-line is rugged in the extreme, although inland large flat areas may be 
seen apparently covered by grasses, and indicating rich pasture; this 
appearance, however, on closer examination is found to be deceptive, as but 
few grasses exist, and a coarse wet cyperaceous pasture prevails, which 
would prove worthless as feed, unless for cattle of a hardy breed that would 
stand the rigours of the climate. There is no doubt however that, on the 
lower levels where soil can accumulate, a rich though coarse vegetation 
exists, but the land is so spongy and wet that the finer grasses cannot 
thrive. The extreme wetness of the soil is shown by the fact that wherever 
a plant is dug out with a knife, the hole immediately fills with water, and 
an indication is thus obtained of the treatment such plants should receive 
when it is attempted to grow them in a drier climate. 
Peat is abundant everywhere on the hill slopes, and in such places the 
great beauty of the Antarctic flora is seen to best advantage when con- 
trasted with the dark coloured peaty soil. Plants such as Celmisia vernicosa, 
