Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/200

166 microphylla); mostly near the running water; the former pale-green, branching, and umbrageous; the latter tall, slender, and scant of shade, but gay in the early spring with an abundance of its leguminous yellow blossoms.

Other well-known forms of New Zealand trees would meet his eye: the Hinau, for instance, the Miro, the Maire, and more abundant than these, perhaps, the beautiful Titoki. In the wooded glens and on their banks he would see the black rough stem and the symmetrical fronds of the Fern-tree. He might find (though they are not abundant) the true and only palm of New Zealand, the Areca sapida, nestling in the most sheltered spots. So long, in fact, as he confined himself to the lower levels and alluvial valleys, he would find himself surrounded by a noble forest of varied and striking vegetation. But if he now leave the valleys and commence the ascent of the mountain ranges, he will soon find himself surrounded by the characteristic vegetation of the country. The conifers, the laurels, and the Myrtles remain beneath him; and stretching away on all sides in unbroken and monotonous continuity, extends a forest of evergreen beeches, carpeted with moss, and unencumbered by that entangled cordage of parasitical climbers, which renders the forest of the richer bottoms almost impenetrable without the aid of the billhook.

But higher than the beech forests there is a flora of great interest and beauty. In this portion of the South Island the species of Fagus do not ascend to a greater elevation than at the most 5,000 feet. Before we leave them in our upward progress, they have dwindled down to dwarf shrubs, shorn by the mountain blasts, and streaming with hoary lichens. At length they are altogether beneath us. Pushing through a zone of no great width, of shrubs belonging to the orders Dracophyllum, Senecio, Veronica, Gaultheria, and others, we emerge upon the open mountain summits, where in winter snow lies to the depth of many feet; where even in the height of summer it still holds its ground in the hollows in large dazzling masses; and where not a month of the year passes over that it does not fall and whiten the entire surface. The flora of this region is widely different from anything which we have met with at lower levels, and bears its own peculiar physiognomy. We have here none of those monotonous masses of foliage, unrelieved by the colour of blossoms, which Dr. Hooker speaks of as characterizing the vegetation of the Bay of Islands. We tread upon a short dense alpine grass which clothes those portions of the surface that are not occupied either by bare masses of rock or slopes of gravel. We have but few shrubs about us, and of a different character from those we left beneath; and the ground is gay with a great profusion of blossoms.