Mh Fans nn an hi TAN" 
Scrub Plants. — Plants of Steppe, Herb- and Fell-Field or related Formations.. 185 
more, above the observer, it is easy to pick out, by their brownish colour, 
those spots which betray the presence of one or other species of the genus, 
and one conversant with plant-combinations can thus gain a fair idea of what 
plants occupy that particular station. Subalpine scrub, too, with Dracophyllum 
present, at once differentiates itself from that where the genus is absent. Some 
of the species are small trees, others medium-sized shrubs, and one, D. fol- 
tum, forms under certain conditions massive cushions (Plate XXXVI, Fig. 49). 
The erect shrubby species have a special growth-form, the chief charac- 
teristics of which are: — stiff, erect stems of a more or less fastigiate habit; 
branching at a narrow angle and vertical, needle-like he sometimes of 
considerable length, with sheathing bases. 
D. Traversiü, abundant in the upper subalpine forest or tall scrub of the 
North-Western and Western districts, is a small tree, varying from 9—3 m in 
height, with an erect trunk 60—25 cm in diam. covered with smooth, reddish- 
brown bark which scales off in papery flakes. At about its upper fourth, 
the trunk gives off a few very stout branches; which, curving outwards and 
upwards and branching 3—4 times in candelabra-fashion, bear on their ulti- 
mate stems great. rosettes of reddish leaves. These are thick, coriaceous, 
30—6o cm long and 5 cm wide at the base; they taper gradually into extre- 
mely long, fine points. The inner leaves of the rosette are not fully deve- 
loped and erect and overlapping, but the outer spread out radially Se are 
strongly recurved, the long points hanging downwards '). 
D. recurvum Mr the Volcanic Plateau is of extreme physiognomic importance 
in that locality. It is a much-spreading prostrate shrub forming rounded red- 
dish open cushions, or patch&s, of much-branching rigid stems covered with 
dark bark and bearing, on the peripheral twigs, semi-rosettes of narrow, stiff, 
recurved, tapering leaves 2.5 cm long. | 
3. Plants of Steppe, Herb- and Fell-Field or related Formations. 
a. The species of Celmisia (Compos.). — Plates LI, LU, LIN. 
Celmisia in the New Zealand region contains 5ı species; all, except C. ! 
longifolia agg. are endemic, and with the exception of C. vernicosa and C. 
campbellensis occur on the mountains of the North, South and Stewart Islands; 
C. longifolia in many places, and two or three others under special circum- 
Stances, descend to the lowlands. The degree of variation in many species, 
both germinal and environmental, is extreme, making classification difficult and 
uncertain; in no few instances it is doubtless epharmonic and a manifest ep- 
harmony distinguishes certain species. 
Celmisia is the dominant genus of New Zealand mountains above the 
forest-line. Go where you will on subalpine and alpine herb- or fell-field and 
the silvery foliage of the species strikes the eye, it may be in 'stately rosettes of. 
1) D. latifolium and D. Townsoni have the same growth-form as here deseribed, while 2 = 
„Menziesii of the Fiord distriet and BROER: Island possesses it in miniature et Sax Fig so = 
