176 Essays. 
distribution, have presented some differing conditions of life, yet as the 
whole area is continuous, and the physical conditions of each district gradu- 
ate away somewhat insensibly into those of the other, we cannot expect to 
find any more material differences in their natural productions than such as 
may be attributed to modifying influences produced by difference of 
climate. 
The Canterbury Plains before alluded to'are generally well grassed, and 
contain, here and there, extensive tracts of what is termed swampy land, 
covered with a luxuriant growth of Phormium tenax, various species of 
Juncez and Cyperacew, and other plants common in similar localities all 
over the island; whilst in moist but less swampy places we find clumps of 
Cordyline australis breaking the otherwise absolute monotony of the 
scenery. 
The plains as a rule are destitute of timber, although to the north of 
Christchurch, and in the neighbourhood of Timaru, we still find small patches 
of forest. In the swampy lands bordering the sea, moreover, at depths 
varying from four to twenty feet, a vast amount of buried timber is found, 
evidently the remains of forests once continuous with the isolated patches 
still growing ; but it is remarkable that although amongst this buried timber 
considerable quantities of pukatea (Atherosperma nove-zealandie) occur, I 
was unable to find a single tree of that species in any part of the living 
forest. The latter, however, still comprises Eleocarpus hinau, Podocarpus 
Serruginea, P. spicata, P. dacrydioides, and P. totara, scarcely inferior in size 
or general appearance to the same trees in the Nelson district. Banks 
Peninsula also produces an abundance of the same timber, but the wood is 
found to be coarse in texture, and applicable only to the commoner uses, 
carpenters and cabinet-makers rejecting it in favour of wood from the 
northern parts of the Colony. 
But whilst these trees produce inferior timber, we find the Edwardsia 
grandiflora (which in the Nelson district is merely a small tree) attaining 
on Banks Peninsula the dimensions of a timber tree, yielding valuable wood, 
remarkable for its durability, particularly when used for fencing and other 
purposes exposing it to the action of the weather. In the small trees and 
the general undergrowth of the forest we are not struck, at first sight, with 
any very marked change, but closer examination reveals the entire absence 
of some genera, and that those which are common to both districts are not 
represented in that of Canterbury by so many species as in that of Nelson. 
For example, while the Nesodaphne tawa, and some of the more beautiful 
species of Malvacez, are common in the warm, wooded valleys of the Nelson 
.  . district, we do not find the former, and only different species of the latter 
` in the Canterbury woods. Myoporum letum, which grows to a large size 
