326 Transactions. — Botany. 



masses more or less regular, which still retain their plasticity, and as they 

 gradually expand towards the circumference of the pit assume the appearance 

 of decorative leather-work on a large scale, until becoming thinner they are 

 gradually absorbed in the general mass. All degrees of consistency are to be 

 found. No vegetation was observed on the walls of mud-springs, although 

 the sides of simple boiling-springs, when not too violently agitated, were 

 usually covered with a dense growth of fern or club-moss. At Whakarewa- 

 rewa, on the south-east, are mud- volcanoes with elevated cones, which are 

 constantly overflowing, and a series of intermittent geysers, fumaroles, and 

 boiling springs, with terraces second only to those of Rotomahana, but the 

 locality is seldom visited by tourists. 



As may be readily imagined from the foregoing sketch, the conditions 

 under which vegetation exists are not favourable to the development of 

 a luxuriant flora, and it is especially worthy of note that throughout the 

 whole of the Taupo country the number of naturalized plants is dispro- 

 portionately small as compared with other districts, even when all allowance 

 is made for the slow progress of settlement ; it is, moreover, largely composed 

 of species introduced by the missionaries for cultivation, mere garden escapes, 

 as the stramonium, fennel, potato, strawberry, peach, cherry, tobacco, purslane, 

 elder, horehound, sweet-briar, Lycium harharum, etc., only a few of which are 

 extensively distributed, the majority marking the sites of deserted cultivations. 



Near Te Arikiroa Bay a dense growth of Dracophyllum urvilleanurriy 

 Leptospermum scoparium^ dwarf states of L. ericoides, etc., prevails to such 

 an extent that it is difficult to force one's way to many spots. Where the 

 surface of the soil is more decomposed Gaultheria rupestris occurs sparingly ; 

 about the boiling pool, Oruawhata, the scrub is much more luxuriant, and 

 mixed with Coprosma lucida, etc. Datura stramonium is abundantly natu- 

 ralized on the sulphur sand of the beach towards Ohinemutu, in some places 

 growing with Lycium harharum. On the low land at the back of Ohinemutu, 

 much of the vegetation is stunted and diminutive. Amongst the manuka may 

 be found two plants which here approach their northern limit — Gnaphalium 

 filicaule and Lycopodium magellanicum,. A Carmichcelia, which in the absence 

 of flowers I refer to C juncea, Col., is occasionally met with. Lycopodium 

 densum, L. laterals, Celmisia longifoliar, Geum strictum, Potentilla anserina, 

 Viola cunninghamii, Hydrocotyle novce-zealandim, Botrychium virginicum, 

 Thelymitra pulchella, Alternanthera sessilis, Bpilohium tetragonum, E. hillar- 

 dieri, E. alsinoides, Pimelea prostrata, with patches of Agrostis cemula, Micro- 

 Imna stipoides, mixed with Cynodon dactylon, and other naturalized grasses, 

 are the chief plants found in this vicinity. Cladium junceum, G. gunnii, and 

 similar plants are abundant in the swamps and wet places : Eleocharis 

 sphacelata and Sphagnum squarrosum occupied the "Whole of one large swamp. 



