404 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
and towards the head of the Dart River, and from the Green- 
stone saddle in the direction of the Sounds. I feel confident 
that a practical route to the West Coast Sounds will yet be found 
in that direction; and if the Government should see fit at any 
time to send a party out to explore in either direction, I would 
beg leave respectfully to ask that I should be placed in charge 
of it. 
GENERAL NOTES. 
nor teagl Ts 
Dactylanthus taylori—On the Saturday in Easter week I was 
fortunate enough to find this curious and rare species. This 
very unattractive-looking plant has remained unnoticed for a 
considerable period, as I cannot find any record of its having 
been found since the type specimen was obtained by the Rev. 
— Taylor, and described by Dr. Hooker in the Trans. Lin. Soc., 
Xxii., 427 t. 75. Ihave carefully compared the plant with the 
description there given, and little seems to be needed to supple- 
ment it. I had ascended the hills which surround the little 
settlement of Tarawera, a military post on the Taupo-Napier 
road, about fifty miles north by west of Napier, and was search- 
ing the leaf-strewn ground for the so-called “vegetable cater- 
pillar” ( Cordiceps), when I picked up a scaly cone-like bud. Not 
recognising it at all, I put it into my box for further examina- 
tion. When a yard or two higher up the slope I found two or 
three more, and a little further on I saw a curious warty excres- 
cence, of a dirty brown colour, partly moss-covered, and, stand- 
ing erect on its surface, several curious brown scaly spikes, some 
of which were globose, and some nearly cylindrical. A few 
inches from the edge of the lump were several other spikes, ap- 
parently growing out of the leafy mould, but when traced they 
were seen to join the main tuber or rhizome, which when un- 
covered I found to be ten inches by six. Not wishing to destroy 
the whole plant, I searched about till I found a small subsidiary 
tuber or lump a few inches lower down the slope and apparently 
growing on the root of a tree. With some trouble I cut off the 
root, on each side of the tuber, and passed a knife under it, and 
lifted the earth-root and parasite into a box, without disturbing 
their relative positions. I then filled up the box tightly with leaf 
mould and moss, so that there would be little or no shaking. 
Two or three of the best male and female flowers were carefully 
gathered and tied up in soft paper and put in a safe place. I 
then traced up the root in which I supposed the plant to be pa- 
rasitic, with considerable difficulty, as three trees were growing 
completely intermixed, a Fagus, a Pittosporum, and a Melicytus ; 
however, I believe it was on the root of the latter—not that it 
mattered very much, for when IJ arrived home and made a care- 
ful examination, the tuberous portion of the Dactylanthus merely 
