Epharmonie variation. — Forest. 123 
icating-shrubs in general are much more open and with less rigid branches than 
if members of a dry forest, a scrub-formation or where exposed to high winds. 
The relation between shrubs or creeping-plants and lianes has been 
already sufficiently elaborated. But in the case of Rubus cissordes var. pau- 
peratus not only is the growth-form affected, but the leafless shrub-form of 
dry ground in the open has never been Se to bloom whereas, when leafy 
in the forest, it flowers abundantly. 
Leptospermum ericoides is a forest-tree some ı2 m or more high with a 
trunk more than 70 cm in diam. but when growing near hot-springs exposed 
to a certain amount of steam it is a slender absolutely prostrate shrub and 
yet its companion-plant, Siyphelia fasciculata, an erect shrub of forest or heath 
is here also erect though somewhat stunted. 
_Certain xerophytes are greatly changed by shade-conditions. Thus Pier:- 
dium esculentum growing in the feeble light of tall Zepzospermum low-forest 
may become virtually a scrambling liane with a tendency'to wind. Gleichenia 
dicarpa has the segments of its sun-leaves so bent as to form small pouches 
whereas the shade-leaves of the same individual will be flat. Zycopodium 
ramulosum of a Westland moor produces abundant sporophylis in the sun but 
is virtually sterile in the shade. 
e deciduous habit, though constant in some species, in others only 
occurs where frosts are comparatively severe e. g. — Muehlenbeckia australıs, 
Arıstoteia racemosa and Fuchsia excorticata are deciduous or the contrary 
according to circumstances. 
Chapter IV. The Plant Formations,. 
1. Forest. | 
a. General. 
New Zealand, as a whole, owing to its high ge rainfall of a fairly 
even distribution all the year round, and its equable climate, was originally 
covered from N. to S. with a close mantle of forest, except where the edaphic 
conditions were antagonistic, or the rainfall insufficient to meet the demand 
Of the various transpiration-factors, especially wind. Even yet, settlement not- 
withstanding, considerable areas are clothed with noble forest, extending in no 
few places from virtually high-water mark to the subalpine belt. In nort- 
western Auckland, on the Volcanic Plateau and the adjacent Wanganui coastal 
plain, on the slopes of the North Island mountains, on most of the land W. 
of the Southern Alps, in parts of the South Otago and Stewart ‚distriets, =” 
forests still exist in no whit different from those visited be the early botanists’). 
I) Thanks to w Scenery Preservation Act of 1903, many areas in Ba Inenliies, ad 
elsewhere, have been permanently set aside for the € preservation of the en, and 
animals. There are also several. national Be of ae extent konn elimatie 3 
este that serve @ ng ae 
