Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/210

176 distribution, have presented some differing conditions of life, yet as the whole area is continuous, and the physical conditions of each district graduate away somewhat insensibly into those of the other, we cannot expect to find any more material differences in their natural productions than such as may be attributed to modifying influences produced by difference of climate.

The Canterbury Plains before alluded to are generally well grassed, and contain, here and there, extensive tracts of what is termed swampy land, covered with a luxuriant growth of Phormium tenax, various species of Junceae and Cyperaceae, and other plants common in similar localities all over the island; whilst in moist but less swampy places we find clumps of Cordyline australis breaking the otherwise absolute monotony of the scenery.

The plains as a rule are destitute of timber, although to the north of Christchurch, and in the neighbourhood of Timaru, we still find small patches of forest. In the swampy lands bordering the sea, moreover, at depths varying from four to twenty feet, a vast amount of buried timber is found, evidently the remains of forests once continuous with the isolated patches still growing; but it is remarkable that although amongst this buried timber considerable quantities of pukatea (Atherosperma novae-zealandiae) occur, I was unable to find a single tree of that species in any part of the living forest. The latter, however, still comprises Elaeocarpus hinau, Podocarpus ferruginea, P. spicata, P. dacrydioides, and P. totara, scarcely inferior in size or general appearance to the same trees in the Nelson district. Banks Peninsula also produces an abundance of the same timber, but the wood is found to be coarse in texture, and applicable only to the commoner uses, carpenters and cabinet-makers rejecting it in favour of wood from the northern parts of the Colony.

But whilst these trees produce inferior timber, we find the Edwardsia grandiflora (which in the Nelson district is merely a small tree) attaining on Banks Peninsula the dimensions of a timber tree, yielding valuable wood, remarkable for its durability, particularly when used for fencing and other purposes exposing it to the action of the weather. In the small trees and the general undergrowth of the forest we are not struck, at first sight, with any very marked change, but closer examination reveals the entire absence of some genera, and that those which are common to both districts are not represented in that of Canterbury by so many species as in that of Nelson.

For example, while the Nesodaphne tawa, and some of the more beautiful species of Malvaceae, are common in the warm, wooded valleys of the Nelson district, we do not find the former, and only different species of the latter in the Canterbury woods. Myoporum laetum, which grows to a large size