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:;:;r r h :i^:;:ri!:«lz ly Berrate, 2 in - or more long - bright - green - * uh ™»»> «* - th - trun^°ST;i?r / teeii ,( ailVer :^ oh; l < l hO i 0 - N °- 14) is " * all forest-tree with a rtraight t.unk ~,,t so thick usnalK as (ha, of A . /,,<„,. covered with smooth sihvrv bark when young ;- • «'«■" oM, Im™, and flaking The branches are spreading when growing in the opjf but In the fores the habit is more totigate. Quite short branches are frequently given off from the trunk clow to the ground. The final branchlets are stiff and slender, and bear on their flanks numerous shorter leafy twigs, which again branch, the whole forming a flat fan-shaped ,105,1,-loafy mass The leaves are small, bright-green, and shining, but rather yellowish inTe mass and not rind green as those of W. fu,ra, coriaceous, and of broadly ovate type TheUltimate branches are clothed with brown pubescence. On the under-surface of the leaf/especially near the base, are fringed domatia. K * (2.) Shrubs. Coprosma fmtidissima (stinkwood) is a rather moderate-sized evergreen shrub, made up of a few.lender arching stems, leafless and unbranehed below, sparingly branched above, and bearine rather pale green subcoriaceous eaves of the oblong type, one or two inches in length, and emitting a foetid odour when bruised The flowers are dicecious. The drupes are produced n abundance and are conspicuous through their orange colour. ' Copromna tenuifntia has very much the same Jiabit as C. faXidurima. There is a slender arching mam stem or stems covered with smooth grey bark, and furnished with a few long branches which give off from their flanks rather distant, opposite, slender, brittle twigs, which branch in similar manner once or twice into very short twigs provided with moderate-sized, shining rather thin ovate, acute leaves of a dark or yellowish-green colour, their veins marked with dark-green ana the under-surface quite pale. Buttons divaricate (weeping matipo) is a moderate-sized shrub with an extremely dense habit of growth after the manner of certain species of Coprotma. Its branches are slender stiff why divaricating, and much interlaced. The leaves are small, of oboordate type, rather pale-coloured' coriaceous, and glabrous. The flowers are minute, and the drupe purple and fleshv Nothopana* simplex is a fall shrub or small tree with a short trunk or trunks, which give off numerous semi-erect slender branches, so that a tree of considerable diameter and thicket-like growth results. The leaves show a remarkable heterophylly, which is dealt with further on and the adult leaves are simple, of lanceolate type, three or four inches long, glossy, coriaceous,' and colm,? re<>n ' are ' and the fIOW6rS are incon8 P icuous and greenish-white in Nothopanax Colentoi (ivy-tree) is an evergreen shrub, with unbranehed naked stems of bamboo-like form, marked at irregular intervals of 2 in. or less with pale-coloured leaf-scars which contrast with the brownish-green smooth bark. Short branches are given off near the ends loniT""r , r""'£/'V , ' irk ' ' Wk r preen ' shlnin *'. I*-* «>»aceo™ &£. digitaT/leavefon through number "'" ,ll<wc,OU8 ' * rr ™&A h large umbels, and rather conspicuous al •meilZh" , "* "' / "'""* ( mo,lllta in-toatoa) is dealt with further on in the section on the lub(3.) Herbs. Lagenophora pttiolata although an insignificant plant, occurs in such considerable quantities on the floor of the mountain-beech forest that it demands mention here. It is a small creeping herb spreading by means of rooting, and branching slender pale-coloured stolons into wide mats The leaves are 0 orbicular type coarsely toothed, dull-green, frequently purple on undersurlce' thin, and with long slender petioles. The flower-heads are small, daisy-like, white, and raised ™?tosS , «r?cSiff e uJ! 1 Straig Slen<ler StalkS nin - m ° n ln ICnpth - VC '- V fr °'' Uentl y the (4.) Ferns. Hymenophyllum multifidum is a filmy fern which forms extensive mats upon the ground or the tree-trunks, spreading far by means of its wiry, creeping rhizome. The fronds are 4in or sin tall, or sometimes more, very thin and translucent, and vary from a dark to a light green' Blechnvm penna marina forms large colonies, spreading by means of the long branching creeping rhizome, which gives off the fronds in tufts. These are dimorphic, the sterile are narrow lanceolate, almost pinnate, dark-green, coriaceous, and semi-erect, and the fertile are longer and narrower, of a brown colour, and with the segments much narrower than those of the sterile fronds rolysUchum veiHtum does not usually on the volcanic plateau show a trunk-development to any marked extent, as in many subalpine forests and in the subantarctic islands of New Zealand It is a tall fern, with numerous spreading and arching fronds, which are 3 ft. to sft lonsr witli rathe" stiff Wades V Cl ° thed dark " Coloured Bcale8 ' and lanceolate, dark-green, subcoriaceous, (c.) Ecology. The subalpine forest of the mountain-beech (Nothofag,,* cliffortioiihs) mav perhaps be designated subxerophyt.c. It is true that Bohimper (30) elawified it as tropophytic, but this was probably to place it in the same category as the closely related deciduous beech forests of Fuema rather than from -any special character of the leading tree. This has small though numerous coriaceous leaves, hairy beneath, which are in part rast off yearly, young bright-green leaves appearing m the spring and giving a distinct and pleasing appearance to the landscape at that season Also, a prolonged period of drought will bring about the leaf-fall. Thus, while camped in the forest near the Ruapehu Mountain House, the leaves during late February and early March