46 M. C. Stopes. 
to be called forth by some special stimulus ; just as in certain plants 
common in New Zealand, there is a distinct adult and juvenile 
form, either of which according to the environment may alone 
exist.' Nor are the above the sole cases of dark pink or crimson 
flowers that have been observed recently, for since this matter was 
brought under my notice, Mr. R. H. Rhodes, M.H.R., has sent me 
specimens of a plant he discovered on the Port Hills, near Christ¬ 
church, with flowers rather lighter than those of L. CJiapinanni. 
Also, Mr. E. P. Turner, a member of the Philosophical Institute 
of Canterbury, writes to me that he found a red variety growing 
wild a little to the north of Auckland in the North Island and 
that he transplanted it into his garden in the above city. 
Finally, it is to be hoped that accurate pedigree cultures will 
be made of the new crimson Leptospermum , and of L. Chapnianni, 
since, notwithstanding the shrubby habit, L. scoparium blooms at a 
very early age 2 and results would commence to come in within a 
couple of years. 
THE “XEROPHYTIC” CHARACTER OP THE 
GYMNOSPERMS. 
Is it an “Ecological” Adaptation? 
I ^HAT the living Coniferales, almost without exception, are 
xerophytic in their structure, is a statement of morphological 
and anatomical facts which are so well known as to require no 
illustration. 
Nevertheless, the distribution of the group at the present day, 
though wide, is in the main coincident with areas where the rain¬ 
fall is plentiful, or at least sufficient to allow less protected plants to 
flourish. Frequently the marked protection of the gymnosperms 
seems out of place and superfluous, as it appears in the lives of 
many species of Abies , the large American forest trees, and in the 
various species commonly found growing in a mixed deciduous 
forest. 
The explanation of this apparent anomaly which has been 
offered, and is widely accepted, is that the present day Coniferales 
are descended from plants which had grown under conditions 
demanding special protection, and that many of them have retained 
the ancestral character in spite of the fact that they no longer need 
1 Cockayne, L. : “ An Inquiry into the Seedling Forms of New 
Zealand Phanerogams and their development.” Trans. N.Z. 
Inst. Vol. XXXI., pp. 356-358, 1899. 
7 T. Kirk. “ The Forest Flora of New Zealand,” 
p. 235, 1889. 
