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Kennedy's Bush. — Receipts and Expenditure for the Year ended 31st March, 1915.

C. R. Pollen, Chairman, Summit Road Scenic Board.

APPENDIX D. Notes on the Plant Covering of Kennedy's Bush and other Scenic Reserves of the Port Hills (Canterbury), by Dr. L. Cockayne, F.R.S. Kennedy's Bush is the most important example of that particular class of forest which originally occupied the gullies and hollows of the Port Hills. Although no longer in its virgin condition, the reserve contains examples of probably all the flowering-plants and most of the ferns which formed the primitive forest. It is therefore an important natural museum wherein is saved from destruction a portion of primeval New Zealand which but for its reservation would have vanished, never to be replaced. The number of species of vascular plants, most of which are found only in New Zealand, preserved in this open-air museum is about 119. These belong to no less than forty-three families and seventy-two genera. Using an equally scientific but much more popular classification, there are two kinds of tall trees, nineteen kinds of low trees, some of which are also at times shrubs, seventeen kinds of shrubs, thirteen different climbing-plants, two kinds of woody parasites, fifty-one herbs, including grasses and rushes, and fifteen ferns. The forests of New Zealand may be classified according to the species of tall trees that are the most abundant, for it is found that associated with these is a fairly uniform combination of smaller trees, shrubs, and ferns. Thus, to mention a few classes, there are kauri, rimu, kahikatea, and southern-beech forests. Kennedy's Bush falls into the category where the totara (Podocarpus lotara) and the matai (Podocarpus spicalus) are the dominant tall trees, and to the special form of that class of forest which occupied at one time almost the whole of Banks Peninsula. Amongst the commonest smaller trees, or tall shrubs, are the following: The putaputaweta (Carpodetus serratus), the yellowwood (Coprosma linariifolia), the New Zealand fuchsia (Fuchsia, excorticata). the broadleaf (Griselinia liltoralis), the lacebark (Hoheria angustifolia), the white tea-tree (Leptospermum ericoides), the mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus), the rohutu (Myrtus obcordata), the ivy-tree (Nothopanax arboreum), the kaikomako (Pennantia corymbosa), the tarata (Pittosporum eugenioides), the tawhiwhi. (Pittosporum tenuifolium), the lancewood (Pseudopanax erassifolium var. unifoliatum), the milk-tree (Paratrophis microphylla), the mapau (Rapanea Urvillei), and the kowhai (Sopkora mierophylla). Amongst the shrubs are several species of Coprosma, the red-blotched horopito (Drimys colorala), the slender fuchsia (Fuchsia. Colensoi), which is also a climbing-plant, the manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) in more than one variety, and Melicope simplex. The woody climbing-plants include several species of lawyer (Rubus), two species of Clematis, two species of Muehlenbeckia, two species of Parsonsia, the supplejack (Rhipogonum scandens), and one elimbing-rata (Melrosideros hypericifolia). Owing to the inroad of cattle in the days before the reserve was acquired, ferns are not greatly in evidence, but they should now increase in numbers year by year. There are also various species of mosses, liverworts, and lichens in the forest, but no list of these has been prepared as yet, though they are of quite as great importance from the museum standpoint as their more highly organized relatives. On the other reserves of the Port Hills, in many places, tussock-grasses dominate. Now, a tussock-covered hillside is an extremely characteristic feature of many New Zealand landscapes ; but, equally with the forests, the tussock pastures are being replaced by a plant - covering of greater economic value ; indeed, before long, except for such reserves as those on the Port Hills, one of the most remarkable plant-forms of the Dominion would be confined to the distant mountains, and even there, day by day, the tussock is being eradicated. The tussocks of the Port Hills are almost exactly alike in appearance, but they are quite unrelated, one belonging to the genus Poa (P. caespitosa) and the other to the genus Fesluca (F. novae-zealandiae). Speaking of the Port Hills in general, the tussocks, through burning and grazing, are being rapidly eradicated and replaced by an indigenous turf-forming grass, Danthonia pilosa. The new plant-association, although dominated by a native species, did not occur in primitive New Zealand, and its presence is entirely due to the unpremeditated act of man. Generally such acts spell disaster, but in this case the sheep-runs of the South Island have benefited to no small degree through the replacement of the tussocks by D. pilosa. However, on the Port Hills reserves the Danthonia, except it be well kept in hand, is an intruder, for the museum standard demands the natural, plant covering. Where rocks occur, on their more shaded faces arc two of the most remarkable plants of New Zealand, from the point of view of plant distribution and rarity. One, which would be treasured in any flora, is the extremely beautiful. Veronica Lavaudiana. It is absolutely confined to Banks Peninsula, of which the Port Hills form an outlying portion. The other is a species of groundsel (Senecio saxifragoides), possessing extremely large leaves, closely covered beneath with a dense mat of hairs,

)eo. 31, 1913. To balance an. 1, 1914, to Mar. 31, 1915. Receipts £ s. d. £ s. d. 24 11 9 Jan. 1, 1914, to Mar. 31, 1915. Expenditure 123 19 5 .. 120 9 6 March 31,1915. Balance.. .. .. 21 110 £145 1 3 £145 1 3