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2 ) 
My first excursions were near Auckland, at Wai-wera (hot water), where the stream 
of hot water literally pours out of the cliff into delightful baths, with its comfortable 
hotel and lovely scenery, with its two rivers, where you go up in a boat between 
wooded mountains and under trees with ferns hanging from the branches, or with 
bushes of white Tea-tree {Leptospermmn scoparium) their boughs covered with little 
white flowers, looking like long plumes bending over almost into the water, reflected 
distinctly on the smooth surface. From the delightful beach of hard sand, may be 
seen bold cliffs with huge trees of Metrosideros tomentosa (plate 29), clinging to the 
face, and on the hill above, amongst the “ bush ” of different kinds of trees and 
creepers of every shade of green ; you may see in the Spring patches of bright 
yellow Kowhai {Sophora tetrantha) Clematis, white Pukapuka, or New Zealand 
Lilac [Brachy glottis regianda), with its large leaves — silvery white underneath — and 
heads of small cream flowers. Then across the valley on the wooded hill opposite, 
may be seen large trees 50 feet high, a mass of bright red, these are Rata trees 
{Metrosideros robusta). In the woods, festooned from tree to tree, there is the 
bramble or Bush Lawyer {Bubus Australis), with long sprays of white flowers, and 
with it the bunches of scarlet berries of the Supple Jack {Bhipogonum scandens), 
which forms such a thick twisted mass in the uncut “bush,” that you can only 
get through it with difficulty, and may often be tripped up or half hanged by 
it. Then all around on the stems of the trees, and hanging from the branches, and 
on the ground, are lovely ferns of all shapes and sizes. All the flowers I have 
described, and many others, I have seen in blossom at the same time at Wai-wera 
in Spring. These are common ones, and may be found at Whangarei, Waikomiti, 
the Thames, and other places near Auckland. At the Thames there are many 
additional ones, some of which Mr. Adams took much trouble in procuring for me, 
and others I saw for the first time in a ride up the Ranges, for instance, the 
lovely white Rata {Metrosideros albi flora) (plate 18), hanging down a bank and 
climbing the branches of the trees in masses of white feathery balls, the tall 
forest tree of Quintinia scrrata (plate 33), in full blossom, the pretty little trees of 
Phebalium nudum (plate 32), and .the graceful Senecio myrianthos. 
My next collecting ground was beautiful Taranaki, “The Garden of New 
Zealand,” as it is called, my old home, where we went through the war and had 
houses burnt, and sheep, cattle, and horses carried off by the natives. It is a beautiful 
region with its grand peak of Mount Egmont, its mountain streams running over 
rocks and stones between high cliffs and wooded mountains, with ferns, especially 
the Hymenophyllum tribe, everywhere, II. demissum, II. polyantlios, and Trichomanes 
reniforme, carpet the ground in many places, as may be seen in the Forster case 
in Kew Gardens. In walking up the path, or rather water-course, up the Ranges, 
5,000 feet high, I could not resist stopping continually to gather H. pulcherrimum , 
II. acruginosum, Todca superba, and the most beautiful mosses with large fern-like 
