80 Transactions. 
state, and has brought together what can be known from both pre- 
sent and past researches of the primitive state of its plant-associations. 
Martin (26) has still further studied the Pteridophytes of the Peninsula, 
and has succeeded in adding to the information contained in Laing’s paper. 
J. B. Armstrong (5), in a general account of the flora of the Canterbury 
Province, published in 1879, when the forests were still largely untouched, 
gave special attention to the fern flora of Banks Peninsula. The following 
summary is based upon these three papers :— 
The ridges, slopes, and valleys of the greater part of the Peninsula were 
originally covered with a continuous sheet of rain forest up to about 
2,500 ft., the summits of a few of the highest peaks (e.g., Mount Herbert, 
3,014 ft.) alone rising above it. Up to 2,000 ft. the composition of this 
forest was very much that of the lower slopes of Mount Peel, except that 
the rimu also was scantly present, as well as certain characteristic northern 
trees and other plants. The lower stories were more closed in than in the 
land, is a sign of its drier climate. There is no doubt also that its filmy 
ferns were more restricted to the gullies, and were less epiphytic in habit, 
than in Westland. : 
In his list (5, p. 346) of the Hymenophyllaceae of the Peninsula, Arm- 
of H. villosum, which species, however, Laing has found to occur on one 
of the peaks. In addition Armstrong mentions the following: H. rarum 
Н. dilatatum, Н. ferrugineum, H. Malingii, and five species of Trichomanes 
—viz., T. Lyallii, T. humile, T. venosum, T. elongatum, and T. Colensov. 
Of the species thus enumerated a considerable number have been reported 
also by Laing and Martin. It would seem, as Laing sets forth in detail 
(25, p. 372), that certain of Armstrong's identifications, more especially with 
regard to the flowering-plants, are to be doubted. So far as the Hymeno- 
phyllaceae are concerned I see no reason for doubting any of the members 
of the list, although Laing queries three species of Hymenophyllum and 
four of Trichomanes. these T. humile and T. elongatum, as has been 
mentioned earlier, are typically northern species. They are absent from 
Westland, but Cheeseman (10) records them from various localities in the 
Nelson and Marlborough Provinces. Seeing that there is a strong northern 
element in the Peninsula flora, it is not unlikely that these two species 
originally occurred there. Martin records the fact that a collector other 
