The Vegetation of the Kermadee Islands: General, 251 
repens and Craspedia minor. Better drained, though constantly wet ground, 
F brings Aypolaena and Gleichenia into dominance accompanied by abundance 
of Veronica buxifolia, and many of the shrub-steppe shrubs a dwarfed 
= are raised on dryer mounds. above the general level. 
fr Section IV. 
The Vegetation of the Outlying Islands. 
‚Chapter I. The Vegetation of the Kermadec Islands. 
1. General. 
The species of pteridophytes and spermophytes of the Kermadec Island 
number respectively 38 and 77 and belong to 42 families and 88 genera. 
Floristically the largest families and the number of species in each are, — 
Filices 27; Gramineae ı2; Compositae 9; Cyperaceae 6 and Convolvulaceae 4. 
The elements of the florula are as follows: — Endemic ı2 species; New Zea- 
land 89 of which ı5 are endemic, 66 Australian and 6 of the remaining 8 
 occur in Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands taken together; Norfolk Island 55; 
Lord Howe Island 44; Polynesian 54 and Australian 74. There are thus 
‚only 8 Australian species which do not occur in New Zealand but, on the 
other hand, of the 66 Australian-New Zealand species, 49 occur also in Nor- 
_ folk or Lord Howe Islands one or both and 17, 6 of which also are Polynesian, 
occur in New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands. Without going more deeply 
- into the matter, the above figures show how closely related is the Kermadec 
 florula to that of Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands‘. The New. Zealand- 
Kermadec ans are by no means er, ee of the N. Ks ‚New Zea 
: En. EN, are of ne dei As Fer a mainder, 7 are 
confined to the Northern and ı3 to this latter and the Central provinee, but 8 x 
of these are virtually Northern so that ı7 P- c- ‚must. be so coı and ı 
ne are pe ar F owe 
