178 Essays. 
respect to vertical or altitudinal range there are, exclusive of those pre- 
sented by alpine plants, peculiarities which itis difficult to account for. 
For example, we find on the Canterbury Plains, so high as the latitude of 
Christchurch, large, well-developed specimens of the narrow-leaved variety 
of Aciphylla squarrosa, a plant only found at truly sub-alpine elevations in 
the Nelson district ; whilst on the other hand Discaria australis is common, 
as a low, straggling shrub, to the dry, low grounds of both districts, pre- 
senting perfect similarity in each, and yet attaining in sub-alpine regions, 
where it is mixed with the same grasses and the same variety of Aciphylla, 
the dimensions of a small tree. Except in this and analogous cases, and in 
the presence of some plant in the one district not found in the other, there 
is little difference in their respective herbaceous vegetation at the lower 
levels. 
In the alpine vegetation, above the forest line, however, much greater 
differences are found, but I may here remark that I have not (nor, so far as 
T am aware, has any other explorer) ascended our mountain ranges beyond 
7,000 to 7,500 feet. My observations, therefore, must be deemed to apply 
to the alpine vegetation below these altitudes. 
In our mountains, too, we find the same peculiarities in distribution 
which characterize the alpine vegetation of other mountains of great eleva- 
tion. Some plants extend over the whole system, others again have a more 
limited longitudinal range, and still others are confined to single localities. 
As examples of the first, in the districts under consideration, I may mention 
species of  Gaultheria, Dracophyllum, Veronica, Celmisia, Ranunculus, 
Anisotome, Senecio, Eurybia, and others; of the second class, other species 
of each of these genera, and more particularly Ranunculus lyallii, found by 
me on the Canterbury side of the Hurunui, and common throughout the 
alpine and sub-alpine distriets of that provinee, but not found further 
north; and of the third class, a beautiful Ranunculus, also found by me, 
associated with R. lyallii, on the Canterbury side of the Hurunui, and never 
yet found elsewhere, and a handsome Celmisia, hitherto only found on a 
spur of the range bounding the Upper Waiau Valley. 
Seeing, then, the apparently arbitrary distribution of merely alpine 
plants, it is useless to attempt any comparison of that section of the floras of 
the two districts. I may, however, remark that whilst in the southern parts 
of the Nelson district a luxuriant forest vegetation is often found to the 
height of 5,000 feet, succeeded by dense but large-growing scrub for several 
hundred feet more ; on the other hand, in the mountains of the Canterbury 
district, a stunted and strictly alpine vegetation almost always occurs 
qu when we reach an altitude exceeding 4,200 feet. 
. Tn summing up I may say that whilst neither of the two districts pos- 
