108 



Runciman, about sixteen years ago. It is singular that until last year the 

 precise knowledge of the locality was lost to botanists ; neither lias the plant 

 been discovered elsewhere in the colony. 



Dr. Hooker entertained doubts as to its being indigenous, founded chiefly 

 on its supposed extreme rarity here, compared with its abundance in some 

 parts of Australia, where it is a common plant. Lexicopogon Richei, Br., 

 affords a similar instance, of a common Australian plant being confined to a 

 small area in these islands. Our plant, however, must be considered as local, 

 rather than rare, since it is found in abundance over several miles of low Tea- 

 tree ground, near Papakura, usually occurring in large isolated patches ; 

 sometimes, when sheltered by a large Tea-tree, it attains a stature of nine feet, 

 and is much bi'anched, but more commonly it is from two to four feet high, 

 with long straight shoots, abundantly clothed with attractive rose-coloured, or 

 white flowers. 



It is readily distinguished from the other species of Epacris, found in New 

 Zealand, by its constantly recurved, pungent, coriaceous leaves, with long 

 subulate points, the large size of its flowers, and the linear-lanceolate sepals. Small 

 sparsely-branched specimens of Epacris pauciflora, with pungent leaves, have 

 been erroneously referred to this species, by New Zealand botanists, and it has 

 been said that E. purpurascens, E. pauciflora, and E. Sinclairii, are but forms 

 of the same plant. The differences between E. pxirpurascens and E. pauciflora, 

 are, however, far too wide to admit of their being united (if New Zealand forms 

 alone are to be considered, at least) ; although it will be difficult to maintain 

 E. Sinclairii as a species apart from E. pauciflora. E. pauciflora occurs on 

 oj>en Tea-tree land, and occasionally amongst other shrubs, Tip to 2000 feet of 

 altitude, at various places between the North Cape and Nelson, but can hardly 

 be considered a common plant. Flowering specimens may be seen a few 

 inches in height, although from four to six feet is a common height, and the 

 plant sometimes forms a large, nmch-hranched, twiggy shrub, thirteen feet 

 high. In the young state, the leaves are sometimes very broad, highly 

 developed, pungent, and more or less recurved, but these characteri sties 

 disappear as the plant grows larger. A striking variety found near the North 

 Cape, is sparingly, or not at all branched, with the leaves approaching those of 

 E. purpurascens, but always green, never brown ; it produces flowers freely, 

 near the tips of the long straight branches ; but the flowers are strictly those of 

 the typical form, and the plant becomes gradually branched and twiggy with 

 age, at the same time developing leaves of the ordinary type. 



Art. XXI. — On the Structure and Colour of the Fibre of Phormium tenax. 



By T. Nottidge. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, September 1, 1869.] 



As the preparation of the fibre of New Zealand Flax has now become one of the 

 staple industries of this province, I thought that the following accoimt of certain 

 observations and experiments that I have made on the structure of the leaf, 

 and colour of the fibre, of Phormium tenax, might not prove uninteresting to 

 the members of the Institute. 



As is well known to all botanists, the fibre of the Phormium tenax is the 

 woody tissue or pleurenchyma of the leaf. This woody tissue consists of cells 

 very much elongated, and tapering at each end, arranged side by side in bundles, 

 the ends of the proximate cells overlapping. 



When the carefully-cleaned fibre is teased out Avith a needle, and examined 

 under a microscope by reflected light, with a power of 1 20 linear, it appears 



