er 
4 
" 
} 
Growth-Forms. 113 
importance, but many bear the true tropical stamp while the climbing Myrzaceae 
are autochthonic. The total number of lianes is 47 belonging to 16 families 
and 22 genera; ı2 are scramblers, ı3 root-climbers, 13 winders and 9 tendril- 
climbers while 33 are woody and 14 herbaceous. Allthe woody species, except 1, 
are endemic. 
Scramblers. RR 
This class‘) is but little removed from many woody plants of the forest- 
interior which lengthen their internodes considerably and assume a spindling 
habit. For example Fuchsza Colensoi, always a twiggy bushy-shrub in the open, 
is, at times, in the forest, a Br Ainbios scrambler. The fern Gleichenia cir- 
cinata is also a facultative liane, but rather on account of its fortuitously pos- 
sessing plagiotropous pinnae suitable for climbing organs than on account of 
any external stimulus. More differentiated is the coastal Angeliwa geniculata, 
since not only are its stems too slender to stand erect but they are flexuous 
and approach the winding-form. Zelichrysum dimorphum exhibits a still more 
lianoid form in -its flexible, cord-like, unbranched climbing-stem and its eventual 
close head of leaf-bearing twigs. But the highest degree of differentiation is 
shown by the different species of Rudus, since their leaves, more or less re- 
duced to midribs furnished with hooked Ghcides, are special climbing orgäns, 
which cling with the greatest tenacity to anything they touch. 
Rubus australis, the most common species, is, at first, a small erect plant; 
then, as it increases in strength, it puts forth long, stout, succulent, erect, 
prickly stems which become entangled in some neighbouring shrub. The growth 
then becomes more rapid and the stem continually ascending, and fixed firmly 
by its prickly midribs, may eventually gain the forest-roof, the climbing stem s 
losing prickles, leaves and ‚lateral ur increasi - in thic getting c 
