Colenso. — On a Collection of Ferns. 315 



ancient pines, whose huge and irregularly-buttressed trunks, and high, 

 ridgy, uneven, and grotesque roots, all thickly dressed in climbing feathery 

 ferns and other plants, add to the picturesque beauty of the scene. Here 

 and there also, in the centre and in the foreground, scattered in clumps and 

 standing singly, are several handsome tree-ferns, while the larger her- 

 baceous ferns prominently show themselves in big tufts and masses, with 

 the smaller ones growing thickly among them, and, as it were, under their 

 sheltering wings. This is a very brief outline of the centre of that pleasing 

 natural garden. It is not often that such a large and clear open space is to 

 be met with in the midst of a thick forest. I daresay in that small piece of 

 ground there are more than a hundred tree-ferns of nearly all sizes ; some, 

 as I said before, in the midst, and some intermixed among the trees and 

 shrubs around it. 



In the spring-summer season, in great plenty in the fore-back-ground, 

 growing with the tree-ferns, that truly handsome shrub or small tree Aris- 

 totelia racemosa, is found in flower ; this is one of the elegant trees of New 

 Zealand, in its fine airy shape, in its variously coloured leaves, and in its 

 profusion of lovely flowers, which, like the leaves, all vary in their tints and 

 colours. With it also grow those three handsome small trees of the Pittos- 

 porum genus (P. teniiifolium, colensoi, and eugenioides), with their fancy- 

 coloured elegant glistening leaves and dark purple blossoms ; and with them 

 fine old plants of the New Zealand Fuchsia (F. excorticata), which here attain 

 to a large size, with their numerous variegated blossoms set off to advantage 

 by their drooping silvery-lined foliage ; with 'here and there among them 

 that particularly healthy-looking shining green-leaved small tree Drimys 

 axillaris, one of the gems of the shaded secluded forest !* Among them 

 also, but more sparingly found, is the graceful twining Parsonsia (sps.), 

 climbing and rambling over the lower shrubs and bushes, with its slender, 

 nodding sprays of cream-coloured blossoms. Behind all those, in the back- 

 ground, and towering far above them, are the taller trees of Plagianthus, 

 Elceocarjms, Alectryon, and Knightia, all differing largely in the forms and 

 hues of their foliage, and all bearing in profusion their showy and curious 

 flowers ; while all around, standing out, as it were, in bold alto-relievo, and 

 often rendered doubly conspicuous by their clean white bark displayed in 

 large patches, are stately robust trees of Weinmannia racemosa, bearing their 



* I don't know if any colonist (whether private gentleman or horticulturist), being an 

 admirer of elegant and handsome shrubs, has ever attempted to cultivate this beautiful 

 plant. Indeed, I doubt of its thriving, save in a very shaded, sheltered, and damp shrub- 

 bery. The beholding of this tree in its beauty has often served to remind me of the 

 famed Plane-tree on the banks of the Meander, which, on account of its extreme beauty, 

 Xerxes adorned with chains of gold, and assigned it a guard of honour, on his invasion of 

 Greece. — -{Herodotus, Polymnia, § xxxi.) 



