Ne 
Forest Plants, 105 
terminal bud is destroyed the stem may branch (CHEESEMAN 1907: 448), and 
several branching examples have been recorded and figure 
The inflorescence is situated at the bases of the erde and consists 
of a much and densely branched spadix enclosed within two boat-shaped 
bracts. The flowers are monoecious. The drupes are ı2.5 mm long and 
bright red. 
R. sapida is endemic and almost confined to the Northern and Central 
botanical provinces, but it extends on the E. to Banks Peninsula and on the 
. to the base of the Paparoa Mountains. 
2. The woody lanes. 
Woody lianes strongly accentuate the tropical appearance of the New 
Zealand rain-forest. In many places their “ropes” hang swinging from the 
tree-tops, solitary or intertwined. Those of Rudus australis (Rosac.), Rhipo- 
gonum scandens (Liliac.) and of Muehlenbeckia australis (Polygonac.) are of 
prime physiognomic importance, the first-named covered with rough, brown 
bark and, at times, 8 cm in diam., and the second smooth, black and jointed. 
High in the tree-tops their leaves are of no physiognomic moment, but on 
an open hillside, the Audus forms rounded masses of interlaced slender, 
‚ leafy stems, while in low shrubby forest M. australis makes a close roof of 
greenery 
Freycinetia Banksii (Pandanac.), of Pandanus-form, clothes great trunks 
with its rooting stiff stems and yellow-blotched sword-like leaves. The root- 
climbing species of Metrosideros also play a most important part in draping 
trunks and tree-fern stems. Clematis indivisa, when in bloom, forms BRANE 
sheets of white on low trees and en shrubs. 
7. The as ef Astelia (Liliac.). (Plate XXI, XXI, Fig. 27, 29.) 
Several species of Astelia are prominent objects in the forest especially 
those perched high on the branches of trees, 18 m or more from the ground, Bi 
and looking not unlike gigantic birds’ nests. nn 
The forest-species are densely tufted herbaceous plants of somewhat tus- 
sock-form, their leaves numerous, linear, coriaceous and green with sheathing 
bases covered with white silky hairs. A. nervosa, a ground-plant, is the most 
widely-spread. A. trinervia, another gröund-species attains a height of more 
than ı m, its leaves measuring ı.3 m by 2.5 cm, while the plants. sa ‚close, 
‚enough to make dense thickets in the northern forests. 
The flowers of all are dioecious, small, and in panicles on long stems. 
een the 
i lowland ae = 
