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New Zealand Plants and their Story

Table of Contents

page v

Table of Contents.

Page.
Author's Preface iii
Chapter I.
The General History of the Plants.
The New Zealand biological region—Special botanical interest of New Zealand—Origin of the flora—Australian and South American connections—A bridge to South America—South American worms, spiders, and fishes—South American plants—The struggle for existence—Grass land versus forest—The kowhai of Chatham Island—Rival theories of evolution—Plant societies 1
Chapter II.
How the Story has been written.
Sir Joseph Banks—His love of natural history—Banks and Solander in New Zealand—The first work on the New Zealand flora—Explorations by the French—Allan Cunningham and his brother—Raoul and the plants of Banks Peninsula—The work of Colenso—A novel collecting-kit—Sir Joseph Hooker and New Zealand botany—Classical works on the plantlife of New Zealand—Explorations in the Southern Alps—Hector, Buchanan, and Haast—Thomas Kirk and the modern period of New Zealand botany 14
Chapter III.
The Forests.
A priceless possession—Rain-forest climate—The two classes of forests—General characteristics of the mixed forest—Origin of special forest plants—Lianes and epiphytes—Flowers—Fertilisation—New Zealand timbers—The kauri forest—The kahikatea forest—The mixed forest and its distribution—Beech forests 25
Chapter IV.
The Natural Shrubberies.
Some peculiarities of New Zealand shrubs—The southern heath—The northern heath—Parasitic plants—The central heath—Adaptations of the heath-plants—The subalpine scrub—Shrubby veronicas and daisy-trees—Prolonged juvenile forms of New Zealand plants—Some interesting experiments—Various forms of the yellow kowhai 50page vi
Chapter V.
The Vegetation of the Coast.
General remarks—Adaptations of coastal plants—Physical and physiological dryness—Plants of sandy and rocky shores—Seaweeds—Sandhills—Reclamation of dunes—The wonderful mangrove—Coastal shrubberies—Vegetation of rocks and cliffs—Salt meadows and salt marshes—Stephen Island, the home of the tuatara—The Three Kings and Poor Knights Islands 63
Chapter VI.
The Meadows.
European contrasted with New Zealand meadows—The meadows of the Dominion—How meadows are formed by nature—Valuable indigenous grasses—Flowers of the lowland pastures—The mountain meadows—Colours of the alpine flowers—Buttercups, ourisias, yellow forget-menots—An alpine desert—Drought-resisting contrivances—Peat-forming plants 84
Chapter VII.
Plants of Fresh Water, Swamps, and Bogs.
Scarcity of aquatic plants in New Zealand—Water-ferns—The red Azolla—The pond-weeds—The water-milfoils—Fresh-water algae—Vegetation of hot springs—Effect of plants on changing the land-surface—Swamp vegetation—The niggerhead—Economic importance of swamps—New Zealand hemp—Bogs and bog-plants—Sphagnum and its peculiarities—Flesh-eating plants—A vegetable trap 105
Chapter VIII.
Plants of the Outlying Islands.
A goblin forest—The ancient forest of Antarctica—A seashore cushion-plant—Finest floral display outside the tropics—Giant tussocks—Young albatroses—Macquarie Island—The Snares—Beetles, spiders, and amphipods of the Bounties—Peculiar trees of the Chathams—A lovely shrub—The tree-groundsel—The great forget-me-not—The Kermadec Islands—Tropical plants on the Kermadecs 114
Chapter IX.
The Naturalised Plants.
Plant colonists—Origin of the naturalised plants—Method of arrival—Statistics—Distribution—Definition of term "weed"—Origin of weeds—Bracken, manuka, and piripiri as weeds—Weeds and human beings—The horned poppy and marram-grass—History of a pasture—Microscopic weeds—A Chatham Island orchard—The struggle between native and introduced plants—Equipment of aggressive species—Origin of a gum forest—Plant-sanctuaries—Esthetic value of acclimatised plants—Hedgerow plants—Likelihood of new weeds—Eradication of native species 126page vii
Chapter X.
The StoRy of Some Common Plants.
Relationships of the cabbage-tree—How gravity affects direction of growth—Fertilisation and seed-dispersal—Distribution of the cabbage-tree—Use of the tree in Maori times—The species of Phormium—The diverse stations of Phormium—Fertilisation by birds—The leaves of New Zealand flax—Use of flax by the Maoris—Garden varieties of Phormium—Diseases 137
Chapter XI.
The Story of Some Common Plantscontinued.
Abundance of manuka—Tea-tree or ti-tree?—Various stations of manuka—The different species and forms of Leptospermum—Uses—The fuchsia as a deciduous tree—Object of leaf-fall—The species of Fuchsia—Construction of the flower—Contrivances for cross-fertilisation—The wood and its properties 146
Chapter XII.
The Classification of the Plants.
Popular plant-names and their defects—Advantage and meaning of scientific names—Explanation of terms "genus" and "species"—Principal divisions of the plant kingdom—Rapid glance at the families and genera of New Zealand flowering-plants—Ferns, mosses, fungi, and algae—The slime fungi partly animal, partly plant 153
Chapter XIII.
The Cultivation of the Plants.
Indigenous plants suitable for school-grounds—Difficulty of growing native plants much exaggerated—Methods of collecting and propagating—Plants suitable for growing from cuttings or from seeds—The school-garden—List of native plants suitable for schools—Cultivation of alpine plants—List of easily grown alpines 167
Appendix.
differences in Nomenclature of plants cited in this book from that of Cheeseman's Manual 177
Index.