ET 
The Plant Formations. 279 
The Fuegian and Kerguelan Festuca erecta is also a plant of coastal rocks. 
Where the ground is swampy there is a close growth of Poa foliosa with tall 
trunks. If tussock is absent, there is Cardamine corymbosa, Montia fontana 
and Callitriche antarctıca. 
The hill-slopes are occupied by a tall growth of Poa foliosa tussock, 
Stilbocarpa polarıs and the silvery rosettes of Pleurophyllum Hookeri; here 
too is Acaena adscendens and A. Sanguisorbae var. minor. This association 
is of considerable extent. All the above is distinctly New Zealand - Sub- 
antarctic, but on the exposed hill-tops the scene changes; the wind has. 
here the mastery and the formation is allied to the “*wind-desert” of Ker- 
guelen Land. Here is HAMILTON’S vivid account: *At about 300 feet you 
gain a plateau so swept by the antarctic gales that the vegetation is reduced 
to compact closely growing mosses, small Uncinias and the conspicuous cushion- 
like masses of Azorella Selago. In the hollows of the uplands 'are countless 
little tarns or lakes, some of considerable extent. Round the tops of the hills 
the wind has cut out wonderful terraces from a few inches to a foot or two 
in height, with completely bare rock, much disintegrated by the weather on 
. the top. In some of the more sheltered places or gullies stunted plants of 
Stilbocarpa and Pleurophyllum cover the ground.” 
Ligneous plants are absent, the representative of the subantarctic divari- 
cating species of Coprosma being the mat-forming herbaceous or suffruticose 
C. repens. 
d) The Bounty Islands. 
These consist of a small group of islets and rocks, the largest about ı km 
in length and go m high. Their sole rock is granite worn smooth as glass 
by the polishing action for ages of the feet of millions of penguins and many 
seals. Immense quantities of guano are deposited during the breeding season, 
but it is washed away by the rains of winter. Except for one species of 
fresh-water alga, vegetation is absent on the land-surface, but at the s 
is, in places, abundance of D’Urvillea antarctica. ‚ Doubtless the 
< ER a part of “Greater New eg 
