BOOKS REVIEWED. 



193 



head roofing in the forest. Though this roof plainly shows the powerful 

 effect of the gales, its density keeps the interior of the forest calm and 

 feebly illuminated, which, with the extremely moist and equable climate, 

 encourages the spread of the forest and the growth of numerous filmy 

 Ferns, Liverworts and Mosses, and such plants as Nertera depressa, 

 Stellaria decipiens, and Epilobium linnceoides. In certain islands the 

 forest floor is in many places quite bare, owing to the sea-lions making 

 wide tracks through it. 



Nor can the Olearia Lyallii forest be less wonderful ; thus in a 

 quotation from Kirk's description of these plants on the Snares we learn : 

 " When this grows a certain height it falls down with the weight of the 

 leaves and the pressure of the wind, and takes root where it touches ground ; 

 then it grows upwards again, and after a while it falls again, tearing its 

 oldest root up and rooting itself a third time." This species is closely 

 allied to 0. Golensoi of Stewart Island, belonging to that section of the 

 genus with large solitary heads. Its leaves are very large, the upper 

 surface a dark green and varnished, the under clothed with a white 

 flannelly tomentum. 



But of all the formations described the Pleurophyllum meadow seems 

 the most attractive, its magnificent display of flowers having gained for it 

 the name of 'Fairchild's Garden,' 400 acres in extent and filled with 

 beautiful flowering herbaceous plants, such as Pleurophyllum speciosum, 

 with huge ribbed leaves 2 feet long, so crisp that they give way with a 

 crash as of thin ice when trodden on, and spikes of fine purple flowers ; 

 P. criniferum with white flower- stalks 3 feet- high and brown rayless 

 flower-heads 1 inch across ; Celmisia vemicosa, with leaves " gleaming like 

 polished nephrite ; " the orange Biblbinella Bossii, Ligusticum (Aciphylla) 

 latifolium and antipodum, large umbellifers with reddish flowers, Gentiana 

 cerina (white striped with red), Myosotis capitata (violet blue), Veronica 

 Benthami (deep blue), Epilobium confertum (pink), Stilbocarpa polaris, a 

 noble plant resembling Gunnera chilensis, and other plants of great 

 beauty but also met with in New Zealand. 



A section is devoted to the effect of animals, both indigenous and 

 introduced, upon the vegetation. Of the indigenous, sea-birds, such as 

 penguins, petrels, and albatrosses, kill the timber or scrub wherever they 

 form rookeries, and certain small plants grow among the old nests, 

 especially Accena, the seeds of which cling to the breast feathers and so 

 get disseminated, and on Antipodes Island the endemic Senecio antipoda 

 is found growing in the bare ground manured by the giant petrel, just as 

 is Cotula Feather stonei on Chatham Island near the holes of mutton- 

 birds. 



The sea-lions, as before noted, make bare spaces on the forest floor, 

 and also on the sandhills. 



Pigs and rabbits have been introduced on some of the Auckland 

 Islands, but the sheep-farming now carried on on Campbell Island seems 

 to have had most effect. Certain Grapes and the magnificent Pleuro- 

 phyllums are favourite foods with the sheep, and P. speciosum they 

 devour greedily, eating right down to the rootstock, and wherever sheep 

 can feed this fine plant will be destroyed. It seems a pity that "one of 

 the most wonderful natural museums in the world," as Dr. Cockayne calls 



o 



