186 Essays. 
Various small flowering plants assist to fill up the details of bush scenery, 
such as the Orchidee; while the Cryptogamia, including ferns, mosses, 
liverworts, lichens, and fungi, cover trees, rocks, and ground with a 
- wonderful variety ‘of vegetable form, and present a luxuriance of growth 
that can only be found under the same conditions of heat and moisture. 
On the margins of forests numerous shrubs are found which never 
penetrate into their dark recesses, preferring strong light with partial shelter. 
The shrubs, however, often form independent patches, covering sub- 
alpine areas, filling gullies, or fringing water-courses. 
Among them will be found plants of great beauty, many of which might 
be introduced with effect in the ornamentation of landscape gardening. 
The snow valleys of the central mountains are seldom timbered on their 
bottoms, from the shifting nature of the surface from floods, the larger trees 
being driven to the slopes of the mountains, while a more rapid reproducing 
plant-growth of shrubs occupies the flats. 
This scrub, as it is termed, is often found impenetrable, both from the 
closeness of the growth and the presence of spinous plants, such as Discaria 
toumatou (the wild Irishman) and Aciphylla squarrosa  (spear-grass).- 
Some species of shrubs attain their maximum of growth at an altitude 
where the trees become stunted, such as Senecio cassinioides, Olearia moschata, 
O. nummularifolia, Veronica hectori, &e. 
The shrubs of Otago are included under the genera Clematis, Ranunculus, 
Hoheria, Aristotelia, Coriaria, Carmichelia, Leptospermum, Metrosideros, 
Myrtus, Aciphylla, Panaz, Corokia, Coprosma, Olearia, Rubus, Ozothamnus, 
Cassinia, Senecio, Gaultheria, Cyathodes, Leucopogon, Archeria, Draco- 
phyllum, Myrsine, Parsonsia, Mitrasacme, Logania, Exarrhena, Convolvulus, 
Solanum, Veronica, Muhlenbeckia, Pimelea, Urtica, Freycinetia, Rhipogonum, 
Phormium. , 
In the geographical distribution of the Otago plants, one striking feature 
only can be noticed. 
The difference between the flora of the east and west divisions of the 
province seems to mark them as two distinct regions of plants. The Clutha 
River forms the natural boundary between, and although one or two genera, 
such as Fagus, push outposts across the boundary, it can be distinctly traced 
from the Wanaka Lake to the Nuggets, on the line of the river. 
Some peculiarity seems to exist in the climate of the eastern or Dunedin 
region, which may perhaps be explained by meteorological observations. 
The character of the Dunedin flora is more of a ne 
many species which encircle it in a belt, west, 
boundary line of the two regions. 
nder circumstances of adaptation the New Zealand species are wide 
gative nature, wanting 
south, and east, forming the 
