204 Botany

wonderful thoroughness, become adapted to its
surroundings.

MESOPHYTE SOCIETIES
Mesophyte societies form, as a rule, either grass-
land or forest. Where the rainfall is abundant we
find the forest, particularly where the exposure is not
too great or the cold too intense. Where the rainfall

-- Insert Image --

Tussock grass-land of Malvern Hlls, Canterbury, showing Wild Irishman
(Discaria toumatou) in foreground. The grass is a fescue (Festuca novae-
zealandiae).

is less in quantity, more especially where showers
occur at frequent intervals, we have grass land.

The grass-lands occur chiefly in three regions, the
Taupo steppe lying to the South and East of Ruapehu,
the Canterbury Plains, and a large part of Central
Otago. The absence of forest to the east of Ruapehu,
though due doubtless in a measure to scanty rainfall,
may to some extent also be accounted for by the
extremely porous nature of the soil and the effect of
recent volcanic action. That the two latter alone