Swamp and Bog Plants. 109, 
’ 
The flowers are small, 4—5 mm in diam., very numerous, crowded, white, 
strongly scented, highly attractive to flies and borne on huge, erect or droop- 
ing panicles at the apex of the trunk, 60—ı20 cm long and 30—60 cm in 
diam. The berries are white, globose, fleshy, 6 mm in diam. and a favourite 
food of certain birds.. The seeds germinate rapidly. 
4%. Swamp and Bog Plants. 
a. Phormium tenax Forst. (Litiae), Harakeke, New Zealand Flax. 
P. tenax is a tall /rzs-like herbaceous plant forming somewhat bunched- 
together rather .tussock-like masses of erect or partly drooping leaves and 
occurring gregariously in swamps, fringing the banks of water-courses, or in 
' clumps on hillsides, dunes or rocky places. 
The leaves are ı—2.5 m, or more long by 6—ı2 cm broad, rather dull- 
green above, but somewhat silvery beneath, coriaceous, tough, flexible, but 
varying much in all these points; the margin is frequently stained brown. The 
major part of the leaf is flat, but at a greater or shorter distance from the 
base the two halves of the blade are folded together making a kind of petiole. 
There is a stout, creeping rhizome which branches near the apex, these bearing 
the leaves. The scape is stout, reddish-purple, often more or less glaucous 
with wax and it is raised above the foliage and bears numerous dull-red flowers 
3—5 cm in length which are succeeded by dark-coloured erect or semi-erect 
capsules, 5—ıo cm long filled with numerous black, oblong, shining, com- 
pressed seeds.. 
The species also occurs in Norfolk Island. 
b. Arundo conspicua Forst. f. (Gramin.) Toetoe-Kakaho. 
A. conspicua' forms gigantic tussocks after the manner of the pampas- 
grass (Gynerium argenteum). The leaves are long and narrow, coriaceous, flat 2 
many yellowish drooping branches and renders the plant most. conspieuous, = 
ce. Typha angustifolia L. varr. Brownii (Kunth) Grach, and Muelleri (Rohre, 
Graeb. (Typhac.) Raupo, Bulrush. 
These forms so much resemble the European ae | 
cription here. It is the closeness of growth, the erect green leaves. 
above all, the *bulrush” - inflorescence which makes the plant so 
and STARHPR it at ee from the Röns denizens of a lowland sam a 
et. 
