1919.] New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 275 
4 
fr 
of the plant under consideration, not neglecting such details concerning its 
habitat as allow a comparison between seedling and adult forms on an 
ecological basis. 
The species is confined to the North-eastern Botanical District, but it 
does not extend throughout, being apparently restricted to the valleys 
and mountain-slopes of the rivers Clarence, Awatere, Wairau, and their 
tributaries, but more especially to the two first-named river-basins. In 
these two localities, when one has reached an altitude of about 2,700 ft., 
the plant may be found in considerable quantity in rocky places, both in 
gorges and narrow valleys. It also occurs on mountain-slopes, but at a 
much higher altitude. Personally, I have not found it growing at above 
5,000 ft. altitude, but it is almost certain to ascend far higher, since, as 
will be seen, its epharmonic capabilities are considerable. In its company 
there may grow, especially in river-valleys at from 3,000 ft. to 4,000 ft. 
altitude, several of the xerophytes peculiar to the botanical district— e.g., 
Helichrysum Sinclairii, H. Fowerakeri, Olearia insignis, and particularly 
Senecio Monroi. Other species of much wider range come into this 
interesting rock association— e.g., Aciphylla squarrosa (a very large variety), 
Festuca novae-zelandiae, Helichrysum microphyllum, Phormium Colensoi, 
Poa Colensoi var., Veronica Raoulii, and V. Traversii. On wind-swept, 
sun-scorched, subalpine rocks of the open mountain-side the species which 
accompany H. coralloides are H. microphyllum, H. Selago, Hymenanthera 
dentata var. alpina, Pimelea Traversii, Raoulia bryoides, and Veronica 
epacridea. As for the growing-place of the coral-shrub, it is essentially a 
rock-crevice plant which, as seen above, grows both on extremely dry 
rocks and on those which, being shaded, are moister. Notwithstanding its 
rock habitat, its long roots penetrating deeply into the rock must furnish 
it with a fair amount of water. 
The climatic conditions of its environment are reflected in its growth- 
forms. Thus, obviously, it has no “ normal ” growth-form—not an unusual 
circumstance amongst plants, but a fact generally neglected by writers on 
organic evolution. 
When growing on subalpine dry rocks on a mountain-side in a position 
exposed to the full force of the frequent gales, and where the direct rays 
of the sun strike and are moreover reflected from the rock, it forms a fairly 
dense, rigid cushion, which in the case of one photographed by me was 
46 cm. high by 33 cm. diameter, whereas in an otherwise similar situation 
but exposed to less wind it is a small erect shrub of open habit perhaps 
39 cm. high by 25 cm. through. Growing on rocks on the shady side of a 
river-groge—of which there are many such stations in the Inland Kaikoura 
Mountains—the plant will be a still more open shrub, 60-90 cm. high, and 
perhaps 90 cm. through, with long, spreading branches, the lowermost of 
which droop downwards from the rock. 
The shoots consist of a very slender quite glabrous thin stem, against 
which the scale-like leaves are most closely pressed. These stem-like 
shoots consist mostly of the appressed leaves ; they are cylindrical in form 
and up to 8 mm. diameter. The leaves are oblong, obtuse, and 4 mm. 
long. The upper (inner) surface is concave, and covered densely with a 
tomentum of rather silky white hairs ; the under (outer) surface is convex, 
glabrous, pale and membranous for more than half its length, but its 
apical half is thick, hard, horny, and of a glossy, rather dark-green colour. 
The spaces between the appressed leaves are filled with the entangled 
white silky hairs extending from the inner surfaces of adjacent leaves, but 
none arise from the slender stem itself. Rising out of this white tomentum, 
