274 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [July 
Descriptions of New Zealand Lepidoptera, by L. Meyrick. 
(This paper will apper in the Transactions.) 
Notes on the Autecology of certain Plants of the Peridotite Belt, Nelson, 
by Miss M. W. Betts. 
(This paper will appear in the Transactions.) 
A History of Hagley Park, Christchurch, with Special Reference to its 
Botany, by Miss E. M. Herriott. 
(This paper will appear in the Transactions.) 
On the Seedling Form of the Coral-shrufe ( Helichrysum coralloides 
(Hook, f.) Benth. & Hook. L), by L. Cockayne. 
1. General. 
The coral-shrub ( Helichysum coralloides) is one of those rather peculiar 
plants the shoots of which resemble certain conifers in that the leaves are 
small scale-like bodies which are pressed most closely to the stem. It 
does not stand by itself apart from all other species of that section 
(Ozothamnus) of the genus to which it belongs, but forms one of a series 
of three species mainly to be distinguished from one another by the 
thickness of their stems including the appressed leaves in the measure¬ 
ment. In this series Helichrysum microphyllum has easily the slenderest 
shoots and H. coralloides the stoutest, while H. Selago —an aggregate 
species—intergrades in its various forms between the two. 
So far, nothing has been published regarding the seedlings of any of 
the above species ; but it might have been confidently expected that 
they would possess, for some time at any rate, true leaves somewhat like 
those of their ally, Helichrysum depressum, the seedling form of which was 
described by me in 1899.* So, too, would the analogous form of the 
shoots of the whipcord veronicas, the seedlings of which are now fairly 
well known, suggest that those of the coral-shrub would be of an ordinary 
type. Notwithstanding this expectation, so greatly did the seedling of 
H. coralloides differ in appearance from the adult growing close by when 
first I found it on the 17th October, 1918, that for some time I was puzzled, 
and thought that an undescribed species of a composite had come to hanj. 
But my second thoughts, that the long-desired seedling had come to light 
at last, were soon placed beyond doubt, for the same day adult plants were 
met with bearing shoots of a seedling character. 
(2.) Distribution and Epharmonic Capabilities of the Coral-shrub. 
T. Kirk when dealing with Helichysum coralloides in the Students' Flora 
wrotef : “ One of the most remarkable plants in the flora, and one of the 
rarest. I made careful search for the plant in various parts of the district 
[Marlborough] but only found it in a single station, which is doubtless the 
place where it was first discovered.” Cheeseman also records only five 
stations in the Manual, J three of which are the same as those cited by 
Kirk. It seems necessary, then, to say something as to the distribution 
* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 31, pp. 370-71. 
t 1899, p. 313. 
t. p. 344. The “ Source of the Conway River ” station given, on my authority, by 
Cheeseman in the Appendix to the Manual, p. 1142, is virtually the same as the “ Palmer 
River ” station cited in the body of the work, p. 344. 
