Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/201

Rh Large and handsome Ranunculi spread out their glossy yellow petals to the sun. Different varieties of Gentian show their spikes of whitish flowers. The Wahlenbergia saxicola recalls the Harebell of our native woods. The quaint-looking Craspedia exhibits its ball of blossoms on the top of a tall and slender stem; and the silvery petals of the Raoulia are seen studded like stars over the surface of compact masses of vegetation that might be taken at the first glance for moss. But the characteristic plants of this zone are the different varieties of Celmisia. The number of these is immense; and as they all carry conspicuous, daisy-like flowers, from the Celmisia coriacea, the blossom of which is as large as a five-shilling-piece, down to the slender Celmisia gracilenta, the alpine heights during the long days of summer are really quite gay with colour.

In enumerating the blossoming plants of that zone, we must not forget the shrubs. There is the Hoheria, for instance, growing in the gullies, a most graceful shrub, carrying a great abundance of conspicuous drooping white flowers. There is the Gaultheria, the closest relative to our native heath of anything that grows in the country; various species of shrubby Senecios; the dwarf Carmichaelias, with the large pea-shaped blossoms, lying close to the ground; the quaint-looking Ozothamnus with its glossy green tuberculated branches and terminal yellow flowers; and chief of all, a great variety of most beautiful dwarf Veronicas, symmetrical in the extreme, bright in their foliage, some bearing spikes, others flat heads of blossoms, but all of them conspicuous and charming objects. Higher than most of the others are the different species of Thlaspi, plants of the cruciferous order, some of them deliciously fragrant; and highest of all is that strange looking plant of the composite family, the Haastia, which is seen where nothing else grows, on the bare slopes of gravel, looking like a large globular mass of white felt, not unfrequently mistaken for a stray sheep.

In addition to those I have mentioned, the botanical explorer of the alpine regions will find, of course, a great number of other plants of interest, and doubtless some still new to science. I have said nothing of the Gnaphaliums, of the varieties of the Violet, the Epilobium, the Spear-grass (Aciphylla), the Euphrasia, or the different species of Orchis, which are to be found on the mountains; but I trust I have said enough to satisfy the reader that the alpine botany of New Zealand possesses its own special characteristics, has a physiognomy entirely different from that of the sea levels, and offers to the lovers of natural objects a most interesting field of exploration.

I find it impossible to refer to the subject of the alpine botany of New Zealand apart from the memory of the late Dr. Andrew Sinclair. In