. Heath. 1 49 
district the association is much more local and absent over wide areas. -It is 
well developed on the E. of the Longwood Range where however it is fre- 
quently mixed with abundance of Dacrydium cupressinum, Podocarpus fer- 
rugineus and Weinmannia racemosa. On the southern-beech here there are 
immense parasitic shrubs of Zlytranthe Colensoi 6 m high and Sa as much 
through. Dicksonia fibrosa is a common: tree-fern. 
2. Heath. 
a. General. 
Heath falls into two classes according as shrubs or fern (Pieridium) don 
between the two are intermediatess How far the formation, as at present 
»constituted, existed in primitive New Zealand is hard to say. Assuredly, it was 
much less extensive, and possibly there are but few places where it is virgin 
at the present time, though usually no community carries on the face of it a 
. more primitive stamp. Heath is related to forest; also shrub-heath, at times 
a. so great an affınity with moor that it is hard to draw a line of distinction. 
Heath, though generally lowland or montane, ascends to goo m on the 
 Volcanic Plateau. It is specially abundant in the Northern ar province, ee 
where it occupies what are termed locally the “gum-lands”. In the Central 
‚and Southern provinces, fern-heath is the more common of the two classes. 
 Shrub-heath is frequently closely related t0o moor but the generally smaller 
amount of peat in the substratum and its greater dryness are important edaphic 
differences. Many of the species are the same, but there is a larger forest- 
element in heath. The soil may be clay,. loess, pumice, gravel or sand. 
