PLANTS OF CHATHAM ISLAND. 



61 



Dracophyllum paludosum. 



FIGUEES 38 AND 41. 



This lovely little epacrid grows everywhere where it is open and 

 the ground sufficiently peaty; it forms with Lepyrodia Tmversii and 

 Olearia semidJentata the chief plant in the upland bog country, and 

 appears directly after Sphagnum moss, as soon as the ground has 

 become a little drier. The flowers are white, about ^ inch long in 

 dense 3 to 6 flowered spike-like racemes. Plants only an inch or 

 so high flower, and it attains a maximum height of about 6 feet. It 

 is easily distinguished from D. arhoreuvi, in that the leaves are no 

 longer or broader in the young state than they are in the mature. 



Olearia semidentata. 

 FIGURES 39-42. 



This shrub is the most beautiful and graceful of all the 35 species 

 of Olearia endemic in New Zealand. It is a plant 3 feet high, forming 

 a compact rounded bush, often 3 feet to 4 feet through, bearing a 

 mass of solitary flower heads, 1 inch to inch diameter, with involu- 

 cral scales in about three series, acute, cobwebby at the tips. The 

 ray florets lingulate, purple, disc florets violet purple. The branches 

 are slender, more or less clothed with white floccose tomentum ; leaves 

 are numerous, close set, ascending, 1^ inch to 2| inches long by 

 J inch to ^ inch broad. Lanceolate or linear lanceolate, acute, gradu- 

 ally narrowing to a sessile base, slightly cottony above — more so when 

 young — ^white, with adpressed tomentum beneath. The peduncles are 

 clothed with numerous small lanceolate bracts. I have seen plants 

 6 inches hifth in flower, and find that the bush is more often compact 

 than straggimg in habit. 



Olearia CHAT AMIGA. 



This is a stouter species than 0. semidentata. Its leaves are much 

 larger, 1 inch to 3 inches long, and broader, -| inch to 1^ inch, and 

 most variable in shape. It comes very near to 0. angustifolia, but it is 

 distinct by the broader leaves and more slender peduncles, with fewer 

 bracts. It grows in compact masses on the chff edges, or scattered 

 about among the upland bogs in association with 0. semidentata. The 

 ray florets are purplish or white, while the disc florets are violet 

 purple. Flower heads solitary, large, 1| inch to If inch diameter. 



It is a very fine species indeed, but its effect when in flower is 

 not to be compared with 0. semidentata. 



