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all those countries , until the connection ceased , and New Zealand 
stood isolated as it is found to-day. The plants now-a-days found 
upon New Zealand must consequently have lived through periods of 
extensive geological and climatic changes. 
Many of the above-mentioned pecularities of the New Zealand 
flora are of importance also for the physiognomy of the vege- 
tation. The traveller, from whatever country, on arriving in New 
Zealand, finds himself surrounded by a vegetation, that is almost 
wholly new to him , and two peculiarities will appear striking before 
all others, that is an abundance of bushes and ferns, and a want 
of meadows and flowers , which is to bo accounted for by the scar- 
city of grasses and annual plants. 
What from afar appears by the side of the immense tracts of 
forest covering hill and dale to be open land, or meadows, is on 
a closer observation found to consist of bushes of the size of a man; 
and where grasses, weeds and chequered flowerage were expected, 
only uniform ferns and bushes with some scanty white blossoms 
are to be seen. Pteris esculent a (Rarahue of the natives), the roots 
of which formerly yielded the chief aliment to the natives, covers 
nearly all the open land , upon the heights and in the low lands, 
wherever it is not replaced by swamp. Upon fertile soil it grows 
to the size of a man, and it is with great difficulty that the tra- 
veller works his way through the thicket where there is no beaten 
path, and even upon paths he finds himself from time to time most 
disagreeably hindered by the woody stems entangling his feet. Only 
Manuka and Rawin' flushes (species of Leptospermum) , or Kumaharau 
c Pomaderris ) and Kororiko ( Veronica ) are .intermixed with Pteris. 
Here and there, in moist places, arises isolated the “grass tree” or 
“cabbage tree” (Ti of the natives; Cordyline australis ), and, quite 
modest , like a recluse hidden among the bushes , blooms the tender 
blue Rimuroa (Wiialenbergia gracilis), the only bell-flower of New 
Zealand, and the Tupapa (Lagenophora Forsteri) , taking the place 
of our little daisies. The verdure of those ever-verdant bush-heaths 
is not a rich sap-green, but a dim brown-green; and when, after 
a longer journey in the interior of the country, the traveller at 
