522 Botany of the Antarctic voyage of 



mountains, especially those of the middle and southern 

 Islands of New Zealand ; but others are doubtless peculiar 

 to those higher southern latitudes which they inhabit, thus 

 being analogous to those few novel forms that appear only 

 in the most arctic parts of America. Even between the 

 Floras of Lord Auckland's and Campbell's Islands a marked 

 difference exists, several species growing most abundantly 

 in the latter which are not found at all in the former, where 

 also the proportion of species common to other antarctic 

 countries is less, and the affinity is greater with the produc- 

 tions of New Zealand. 



" Lord Auckland's Group. A view of this small and very 

 limited group, of about twenty miles long and eleven in its 

 greatest breadth, as it appears on approaching from the sea, 

 presents an almost equal distribution of woods, shrubs, and 

 pasture-land. The mountains are low and undulating, no- 

 where exceeding 1400 or 1500 feet, clothed for their greater 

 part, but scarcely to their very summits, with long grass, 

 and frequently covered during November and December, 

 though not generally with snow. The climate is rainy and 

 very stormy, so that on the windward sides the plants are 

 stunted and checked, and resemble those of a higher south- 

 ern latitude, or of an elevation several hundred feet above 

 that which the same species inhabit on the sheltered parts. 

 The whole group of islands appears formed of volcanic 

 rocks, mostly of black trap, whose decomposition, especially 

 among the ranker vegetation of the lower grounds, produces 

 a deep rich soil. A myrtaceous tree (Metrosideros umbel- 

 lata) forms the larger proportion of the wood near the sea, 

 and intermixed with it, grow an arborescent species of Dar- 

 cophyllum, several Coprosmas, veronicas (frutescent), and a 

 Panax. Under these, and particularly close to the sea- 

 beach, many ferns abound ; conspicuous among them is a 

 species with caulescent or subarborescent stems half a foot 

 and upwards in diameter, crowned with handsome spreading 



