File:Plants of New Zealand (1906) (14597575418).jpg

Identifier: plantsofnewzeala1906lain (find matches)
Title: Plants of New Zealand
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Laing, R. M. (Robert Malcolm), b. 1865 Blackwell, E. W. (Ellen W.)
Subjects: Plants
Publisher: Christchurch : Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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d than Aciphylla.Why so many of our plants should be xerophytic is a puzzleto botanists, but a fuller discussion of the question will befound under Plagianthus betulinus (pp. 254-258). That the leaves should be reduced to spines in Aciphylla isespecially remarkable, because the leaves of other members ofthe family are often large, and well developed. Those,however, of A. Colensoi and A. squarrosa are in the seedling formquite flaccid and grass-liket, while, according to Mr. Cox ofthe Chatham Islands, the leaves of A. Traversii are so soft thatsheep eat them greedily. On well stocked stations the plantstherefore suffer severely, and are soon exterminated. Theseanomalies of leaf-form tend to show that the ancestors of thegenus Aciphylla were of a normal type. If further argument were required to show that the spinousleaves oi Aciphylla are really drought-forms, and not protective * Darwinism, Colonial Edition, p. 433.I Cockayne : Trans. XXXIII., p. 279. THE PAESLEY AND CAREOT FAMILY 319
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Fig. 103. Aciphylla Colensoi. 320 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND against grazing animals, it is to be found in the fact thatAcipliylla quickly disappears on country over which stockruns. By a curious irony of fate, the protection of the spines,when needed most, is wanting/ The young plants aregreedily eaten by cattle and sheep, and so, as the old plantsdie off, no others are allowed to grow up and take theirplace. Rabbits, too, attack the mature plants and destroythem. They are small enough to eat a single leaf, withoutdanger from its neighbours. Aciphylla Colensoi iColensos Spaniard). Plant 2 ft.-8 ft. high. Leaves 1ft.-2 ft. long, ^ in.-; in. broad, spinous,greenish-yellow. Leaf-sheath also provided with a pair of simple or dividedspines, the whole forming a mass of bayonet-like spikes. Umbels arranged in astout, erect, leafy raceme. Both islands. )\Iaori name, Tarmnea. Fl. Nov.-Dec. Aciphylla squamosa (The Boiigh Spaniard). A much smaller plant than the preceding, and greyer in colour. The

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