BOTANY OF THE SNARES. 163 



twenty-six feet, with a short trunk two feet in diameter. The branches 

 are somewhat naked, so that the tree presents a straggling appearance, 

 but the handsome foliage and large terminal panicles of yellow flowers, 

 place it amongst the tinest members of a large genus abounding in 

 grand species. 



Veronica elliptica, which has been already mentioned, completes 

 the short list of ligneous plants ; it is, however, of a more robust form 

 than the plant found on Stewart Island and at the Bluff, the flowers 

 being larger, with pure white corollas, which are never pencilled or 

 streaked. 



The open land is covered with tussocks of the fine grass Poafoliosa 

 Hook, f., a., freely interspersed with masses of Carex trifida, the largest 

 of the New Zealand species ; a few small plants of no great importance 

 are hidden away in the hollows between them. 



One of the most interesting plants in the island is Colobanthus 

 muscoides Hook, f., which hitherto has been considered endemic on the 

 Auckland, Campbell, and Macquarrie Islands, where it is plentiful. It 

 is rare and local on the Snares, and appears to be confined to a small 

 swamp in the centre of the island, but its discovery extends its northern 

 range fully 150 miles ; subsequently I observed it on Antipodes Island, 

 which shows a still wider extension of its range in an easterly direction. 

 It forms rather large dense masses, the inner portion consisting of the 

 partially decomposed stems and leaves of old plants and the roots of 

 young plants. The seeds often germinate in the capsule, and it was no 

 uncommon thing to find capsules still attached to the stem, and with 

 apparently perfect seeds embedded some three or four inches below the 

 surface of the mass, the old surface having become covered with a 

 growth of young plants too quickly to allow of the germination of the 

 buried seeds. 



Another interesting plant was a new Ligusticum, which I have 

 named L. acutifolium; it was only observed in one place, at an altitude 

 of about 350 feet above sea level ; its stems below the leaves were 

 nearly as thick as a man's wrist, the entire plant being four feet high : 

 a description is appended. 



The most striking herbaceous plant is undoubtedly the punui, 

 Aralia Lyallii T. Kirk, var. robusta, the large orbicular leaves of 

 which are sometimes two feet in diameter. It differs from the typical 

 form in the absence of the remarkable stolons of that plant ; in the 

 petioles being very stout, flat on the upper surface and convex beneath, 

 giving a plano-convex section ; and in being solid, or nearly so, instead 

 of terete, thin-walled, and fistulose. The flowers also, although forming 

 equally large masses with the type, are individually smaller, and 

 invariably of a pale dull yellow hue, never lurid ; but there is no 

 structural difference, although it must be admitted that at first sight 

 the plant appears to differ widely from the type. 



Lepidium oleraceum Forst. ("Cook's scurvy-grass") was found in 

 one or two places on the cliffs, associated with Myosotis capitata var. 

 albida, a form not infrequent on the cliffs of Stewart Island. 



The only ferns collected were Lomaria dura Moore, Asplenium 

 dbtusatvm Forster, and Aspidium aculeatum Swartz, var. vestitum. It 



