Page:Native Flowers of New Zealand.djvu/11

 leaves, growing on the tree trunks and rocks. When about 4,000 feet high we emerged from the "bush." The view was supurb. It seemed as if for miles and miles there was nothing but trees and the sea beyond them. The town of New Plymouth lay far away in the distance, but we could not see it, it was hidden by the smoke of the burning "bush." The beautiful forest with its flowers and ferns is fast disappearing before the tide of cultivation, and many will only be known by their dried and shrivelled up remains. The short scrub where we were, was greatly composed of Senecio cleagnifoliuseleagnifolius [sic], or "brown backs" (plate 15), and a very curious kind of spear grass. I could not get any further, but others of the party went to the top of the ridge, another 1,000 feet, and they kindly brought me several lovely little Alpine flowers, Forstera Bidwillii, Euphrasia Monroi, Gnaphalium bellidioides, and others. At the foot of the Ranges the small Snow-trees (Carpodetus serratus), so called from the quantities of little white flowers making it appear as if there had been a fall of snow, were in full bloom, the flowers all down the stems, with shining leaves on each side, forming the most lovely wreaths. After a twelve hours' journey by train to Palmerston, I started at six the following morning on my overland journey by coach to Wellington, going through the famed Manawatu Gorge, sleeping one night on the way, then starting at 4 o'clock a.m., and on through miles and miles of forest with some good bits of mountain scenery to Masterton, then by train to Wellington, zig-zag up the Rimutaka Mountain, with the great engines (four I think), puffing and snorting as if they hardly could get up. We looked down on the beautiful scenery, the trees red with Tetoki berries, passed the place where a train, engines and all, was blown down the hill by the wind, and then went through the tunnel and down the other side to the Hutt Valley. After going by sea to Nelson, through Queen Charlotte's Sound and the French Pass, we went by coach to a station called Lake Station, belonging to Mr. John Kerr, whose family were most kind in helping me. The roads in New Zealand are very narrow, with only just room for the coach, and no wall or anything to prevent one going over the precipice. Once as we were at the top of a mountain range, and had gone round a sharp curve, one of the traces broke. Some evil disposed men had wantonly set fire to the forest all along the road, burning whole sides of mountains and destroying some of the most magnificent scenery, we were several days in going through, it was still smoking and occasionally blazing up, and there was the risk of burnt trees falling on us. After leaving the coach we were driven by buggy twelve miles to the station, and had to pass over a burnt wooden bridge, which it was hoped would not give way. We went in a boat on a lovely lake, Roto-iti (or Little Lake), with high mountains round three sides of it; we landed on a point and walked up to a waterfall where I got the Loranthus Colensoi (plate 30), Ourissia macrophylla, and some others. At the edge of the lake there were bushes with lovely berries of different colours, and such large white snow berries (Gaultheria antipoda).