288 Transactions.— Botany. 
The above three plants are closely related, Celmisia walkeri, Kirk, and 
the present described plant, being probably only varieties of Celmisia dis- 
color, Hook. fil. 
The figure on plate xv. is drawn of the natural size, 
Locality.—Collingwood. 
Art. XXXIV.— Notes on Loranthus fieldii, Buchanan. By H. O. Fern. 
Communicated by the President. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 6th August, 1884.) 
I was greatly surprised on looking over the last volume of Transac- 
tions* to find that a Loranthus of which I sent a spray to Mr. 
Buchanan in February was new to science. It is so abundant in the 
region where it grows, and that region has been so constantly tra- 
versed by Europeans—several tracks from Wanganui to Taupo passing 
through it—that I never dreamed that the plant could have escaped obser- 
vation. Those ardent botanists, Dr. Curl and the late Rev. R. Taylor, both 
visited the locality to my knowledge. Thelatter indeed did so several times, 
and, as he spent a Christmas at Taupo, he must apparently have traversed 
the forest where the plant grows just when it was in blossom. 
I first saw it in December, 1870, and have had so many opportunities 
of observing it since that date that I can describe it fully. It grows on the 
red birch trees, but only on the upper branches of large trees, where the 
bark is smooth and firmly attached to the wood. It is never seen on the 
trunk or large branches, which have their bark more or less rough and 
detaching in large flakes. Ihave never even seen it on young trees, though 
these have smooth firmly-clinging bark. I think it only grows on the red 
birch, as I ave not observed it on the black. The level forests to the south 
and west of Ruapehu consist almost exclusively of red birch, the black being 
found growing separately, in detached patches of bush, on the eastern side 
of the mountain, and thence to the Ruahine. 
The Loranthus forms large bushes in the tops of the trees, and the 
blossoms are so abundant as almost to hide the foliage, so that each bush, 
when in flower, looks like a flame. I believe that the largest bushes are 
quite 10 feet in diameter, and those of 6 feet are common. I should say 
that fully ten per cent. of the large trees have one or more plants of 
Loranthus growing on them, and as the blossoms fall the whole ground is 
sprinkled with the petals. The root of the plant is hard and woody, and of 
* «Trans, N.Z. Inst.," xvi., p. 397, 
