length arrives once more in the vicinity of European settlements, 
of fields and meadows, their rich verdure appears to him almost 
like a flash of glaring colours. 
Upon the pumice-stone plateaus in the interior of North Island, 
and in the Alpine valleys of South Island, the bush vegetation is 
partly supplanted by a meagre grass vegetation which, however, 
is still sufficient to make those parts a natural pasture ground for 
sheep, horses and cattle, and which is easily and rapidly improved 
by the introduction of European grasses. Peculiar to these grass 
plains are certain species of Acyphilla and Disc art a , rendering many 
tracts where they grow in larger quantities, wholly inaccessible. 
On account of then- slender blades terminating in sharp spines the 
colonists have named them “spear grass”, “wild Irishman”, and 
“wild Spaniard”. 
On entering the “Bush” — as in New Zealand the forest is 
called — it is again ferns that principally meet the eye , magni- 
ficent Tree ferns , 1 their trunks as if coated with scales, and with 
neatly shaped crowns ( Dicksonia and CyatheaJ ; Hymenophylla and 
Polypodia in the most different varieties , which cover with luxuri- 
ant growth the trunks of the forest trees; the singular form of 
the Kidney-fern (Tricliomanes reniforme) , the round, kidney-shaped 
leaves on the edges of which are bordered with seed pods; ferns 
between the branches and twigs of the trees ; ferns on the ground ; 
bulbiferous Asplenia ( Asplenium bulbiferum), tender species of GtOniop- 
teris and Leptoteris ; in short all sorts and varieties of ferns. 
But in the woods also there are scarcely any gay flowers and 
blossoms; but few herbaceous plants, nothing but shrubs and trees; 
shrubs with obscure green flowers, and very often of obscure and 
little known Natural Orders . 2 Of the numerous Pines , very few 
1 Some of them reaching the size of 30 to 40 feet. 
2 More than 200 New Zealand species having, according to Dr. Hooker, either 
unisexual or polygamous flowers, or are otherwise incomplete in their reproductive 
organs, even when their floral envelopes are more or less developed. We are by this 
fact reminded of the imperfect organs of locomotion of numerous New Zealand animals, 
of the wingless birds and (he wingless insects in the order of the Orthopterm (see 
Chapters VIII. and IX). Of flowering trees there are upwards of 113, or nearly 
