166 Essays. 



onicrophylld);''^'- mostly near tlie running water; the former pale-green, 

 branching, and umbrageous ; tbe latter tall, slender, and scant of sbade, 

 but gay in the early spring with an abundance of its leguminous yellow 

 blossoms. 



Other well-known forms of New Zealand trees would meet Ms eye : the 

 Hinau, for instance, the Miro, the Maire, and more abundant than these, 

 perhaps, the beautiful Titoki. In the wooded glens and on their bants he 

 would see the black rough stem and the symmetrical fronds of the Fern- 

 tree. He might find (though they are not abundant) the true and only 

 palm of New Zealand, the Areca sapida, nestling in the most sheltered spots. 

 80 long, in fact, as he confined himself to the lower levels and alluvial 

 valleys, he would find himself suri-ounded by a noble forest of varied and 

 striking vegetation. But if he now leave the valleys and commence the 

 ascent of the mountain ranges, he Avill soon find himself surrounded by the 

 characteristic vegetation of the country. The conifers, the laurels, and 

 the Myrtles remain beneath him ; and stretching away on all sides in un- 

 broken and monotonous continuity, extends a forest of evergreen beeches, 

 carpeted with moss, and unencumbered by that entangled cordage of para- 

 sitical climbers, which renders the forest of the richer bottoms almost 

 impenetrable without the aid of the billhook. 



But higher than the beech forests there is a flora of great interest and 

 beauty. In this portion of the South Island the species of Fagiis do not 

 ascend to a greater elevation than at the most 5,000 feet. Before we leave 

 them in our upward progress, they have dwindled down to dwarf shrubs, 

 shorn by the mountain blasts, and streaming with hoary lichens. At length 

 they are altogether beneath us. Pushing through a zone of no great width, 

 of shrubs belonging to the orders Dracophyllum, Senecio, Veronica, Gaul- 

 theria, and others, we emerge upon the open mountain summits, where in 

 winter snow lies to the depth of many feet ; where even in the height of 

 summer it still holds its ground in the hollows in large dazzling masses ; 

 and v/here not a month of the year passes over that it does not fall and 

 whiten the entire surface. The flora of this region is widely diflierent from 

 anything which we have met with at lower levels, and bears its own 

 peculiar physiognomy. "We have here none of those monotonous masses of 

 foliage, unrelieved by the colour of blossoms, which Dr. Hooker speaks of as 

 characterizing the vegetation of the Bay of Islands. We tread upon a 

 short dense alpine grass which clothes those portions of the surface that 

 are not occupied either by bare masses of rock or slopes of gravel. We 

 have but few shrubs about us, and of a different character from those we 

 left beneath ; and the ground is gay with a great profusion of blossoms. 



* Sopkora tetra]ptera, var. 6. microphi/lla, Hook. f. — Ed. 



