1876.] New Zealand Flac. 19 
which is the subject of our sketch, is a flag-like, liliaceous plant, 
growing in large spreading clusters of sword-shaped leaves, which 
are often eight or ten feet in length, and of a bright, shining 
green color. Many of these bunches support an upright flower- 
stalk, with purple blossoms, which resembles, somewhat, the in- 
florescence of the banana, held in an upright position. This plant 
is known to the colonists as New Zealand flax, and to the bot- 
anist as Phormium tenax, of which several varieties have been 
described. 
It is very characteristic of New Zealand, being found nowhere 
else, except on the Norfolk and Chatham Islands. À 
During our stay in New Zealand we found it growing wherever 
we went, from the low shores of the southern part of the South 
Island, where it covers immense fields, up to an elevation of four 
and five thousand feet among the southern Alps. 
The spreading masses of Phormium growing among thick 
groves of the palm-like grass-tree (Cordyline australis) give to 
many retired nooks and valleys a soft tropical beauty, that forms 
a pleasing contrast with the usual rugged and Alpine grandeur of 
New Zealand scenery. 
The New Zealand flax covers thousands of acres, both in the 
North and South Island ; this amount, although vast, could be 
increased many fold by cultivation. Seemingly, it likes best the 
low, wet land near the coast, but also grows with great luxuri- 
ance along the banks of rivers and lakes, where it can obtain 
plenty of moisture. 
To the natives of New Zealand, before the blessings of civiliza- 
tion (?) were thrust upon them, the Phormium was what the 
cocoa-nut palm is to the inhabitants of the tropics, or the bamboo 
to the Hindoo and Malay. The Maori woman, sitting on the 
earthen floor of her hut, makes an incision across a leaf of Phor- 
mium with the sharp edge of a mussel-shell ; then placing the 
leaf on the edge of the shell, with the cut side up, rapidly draws 
it between her thumb and the shell, thus stripping off the green 
pulp, and leaving the tough fibre ready for use. 
Of this the Maoris weave their mats and rugs, which are very 
soft and warm, and often wrought in an elegant pattern by means 
of colored Phormium. 
These mats, together with garments made of the dried, un- 
dressed leaves, formed the scanty clothing of the natives before 
the coming of the Europeans. 
The dried leaves, when split into narrow strips, are used to 
