THE SUB-ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 15

THE SUB-ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

VEGETATION OF THE 1 ISLANDS. 1

"-"■ ' Bt 1 K. "M.^.Ljung, MiA., B.~Sc."*- >- Were - a modern - Maeldane ' writing" his „ voyages he could find matter fo"f matter a - wondrous talc- in the islands to the spjith; of New Zealand. The Snares might /well be the Itfrrci of voices and of ey/l odours. -In the Auckland group ' he would' find ,a "5 forest 'that would go far .to justify "his quaintest-imagination about trees, for trunk and stenr' there assume as fantastic iorms > as ever they did in the enchanted, glades of BrocelU-uia. Had he . ventured as far. soitffi as Campbell Island he ~ would, -have seen birds with such expanse of wing that ""they ' might well vie with the Roc that in the "old Arabian tale carried off Sinbad. ' Unfortunately, however, for the sake -ol -the. picturesque, imagination had to give ' jplaoe to observation, and fancy to reason, " eo,tli»t the point of .view of the 'biologist of' to-day is very different from that of the. romantic traveller of, old. The -former endeavours to, follow ■ undeviatingly the narrow^Kae of- truth, and so his narrative . is^uat to. lack the dramatic colouring and perfervid interest that was found in the . legends jand myths of his predecessors. He 6ets himself first of. air soberly to find out what plants and animals live in a given area, and to, describe them as they actually agpear. Then he endeavours to find out ,'Jhow they are related to each other .und to their environment, and just here it 16 that 1 many problems fascinating to the modern miad apse. -Fifty years ago the botanists thought .their work' was finished when they had' 'described the outward, appearance generally . from herbarium "material of the plant under consideration. The twentieth century investigator, not content , with sucti dry^as-dust learning, endeavours to find' out why the: plant lives. in * particular plaoe* .and ■'how it lives. * These inquiries give rase ti» man? problems, that can only be solved by an appeal to -the mirroundinw of' the during life. The ' liortus ciccus cannot help us here, and wfe must t therefore study tb* Jiving plant in its natural Bturoundings' to gain the iilforma*wm. we require. Beaof a iew questions, w&ioh •ugges.ted themselves to' us in our trip to the Southern Islands were such as these: Whw* plants associate themselves together, «&S whioh live by "fliemselves in formation t Why are certain, plant associfrtions iormed, and under wJ»t conditions are they permanent? If -a natural vegetation .is ' destroyed by fire,- by animals, or in any ofcb«f,*as. 4©w is itTephtoed? This inquiry v o£ *>oume leads' to 4a£,«ufoo*di«Mrte questions : "Wiatktbp action of the mollyhawk, the sea lioa> man, and ether frequenters of the . iskoufe T*on- the natural vejjetationT Replies to these investigations will lead to the .acquisition of much information as to the present and past state and probable future of tine flarulas of tfcase islands. , Further fact* will he obtained from « careful examinaVten of the ia-brtats whidh particular plants oppupy. Some will only be found on wet rooks, others in boa, some on the forest floor, and again others in the open meadow. Generally it will be seen .that each species has some distinctive position in whioh it most frequently occurs, and a careful euaainatran of these locations will enable us to explain many of the observed facts relating to .the structure and shape of the leaves of aav given plant. Such studies have given rise to some of the most inter•stiaff cbaptea in mc>dern botany. Now, die kotanisjs who visited the Sooth Islands soaroely hoped to add any new species to t&e liste of plant* already known- From tine croups eai&er worstfre in the field fcaro afafttfdy oata&ftoed nearly a&the forma to ,be found there, hot tfeey diet hope to rather cone information by the methods dessribad above, which would enable them to form wme opinion* «* to the origin of the floruke with whien. they had to deal, and seme cortohiaions aa to 4&eir probable future fate; and in thes* objeote they were •uowssfid,. Aeugh. the time allowed i^em In men .group was quite insufficient to permit a detailed survey of the plant coverings of -the istentk. The first visited were the Snares. The ■ chief island is l*t%ely^ covered with a forest of Qi—>ri* lyalliL Tie deaxias are shrubs well known throughout New Zealand to all mho take an interest in the native plants, This species, however, is a big-leaved form, that is a£mo*t restricted 'to the southern ialaads. Usder its leaves is a dense shade, when tttfcU. if anything, grows; Foul, beer-coloured streams trickle through the iofeest, and every here and there on the boggy soil is a rdokery of penguins, whose dims; covets everything in ihe neighbourhood,* including even the trunks of the eeraiprostraiter twee. The ground, where not oorered with the excrement of the birds, is usually wet and boggy, though on the day when we landed "on the Snares there were evidenoes of comparative drought. Not only w progress rendered difficult by the .softness of the ground, bat it is also Htajbetred by'tbe treacherous nature of -the - wjrfaee. fcveryw&ere thronghout the forest the mutton bisd* 1 bunowis abound, and one's foot ireqoently bredos through into tjte »ea. When the entrance to a hole is thus accidentally blocked by a faJI of esrUi, the bird *ets itseK at once with almost incredible energy to «coop out & tpesh appnmoh. Here and tbwre throughout the forest one comes upon the tracks of the «ea lion, or upon the animal itself. Everything conspires to make the olearic "o" 10 nauseating and depressing, *nd in olden ■ times these islands v«mld certainly have ibeen regarded as the haunts- -of evil spirite '■ antl tost sonls. Further south »re the' Auoldaad Wands, also forest-clad, but though on the norttiern coaste there w » Bmalf amount of Olearia lyallii, yet the chief constituent of :the bush is tne southern eata, Thiß forest, though not so weird as that of the Spares, has inspired one of the finest deseriptiye. iwuwages yet written, about the sub-AnUiotic islands. As thi* word-picture i« but little known it is worth ' quoting in its -entirety. It was written orfsriniHy 1 in Ffiencp by H. F., Baynal. mate of the sohooner Graiton. but in its English dress' occurs in a boy's book called "Wrecked on a Reef." This volume contains a picturesque account of the wreck of the tmfortunate schooner, and is one of the best vivacious narratives of the Robinson Crusoe type. The passage referred to mas follows:— ' ■ "Tie wood m very dense, in fact, rlmost impenetrable. In the neighbourhood of the shore, where, as I have eaid, the atratum of peat is thickest, it is composed of * tangle of shrubs, heaths, ferns, and gMßßses of^-every kind, dominated over by three species of trees. Of- these,, th* most.

remarkable is a kind of iron wood, with a thin bar It, whose trunk measures from lOin to 12in in diameter. This, trunk is generally twisted in the most^fanj" tastic .fasljion^ a condition^ whioh may bS attritmte^ritoSthe cadptan,t'4SCtuggle it h&i-c to maintain against the winds. It seems that in moments of respite it hastens to assume its normal mode of growth, and to rise perpejrdiealarlyKX clFhtn^" buffeting " wSn3ft? a%a», sfadf beaten dofltfi* 1 anew, it bows and writhes and humiliates itself to shoot aloft for a foot or so until J soon it falls vanquished, and is bent toI wards tiie ground. . SoSnetimes these trees being, wholly, inisuccessful in their attempts to nse erect, crawl, as ,it were» along" theearth, disappearing every now . and then ■ under hillocks of verdant turf, while the | portions visible are thickly coated with mosses of every description. - The thick* gnarled branches share .the same fate as the trunk. They" attempt at first, as it does, to spring towards the sky ; then, forced^ to abandon their' aspirations, they take a horizontal direction. They bear, nevertheFlese, a thick, "close foliage, whioh shelters as a roof might do a whole subordinate world of shrubs, heaths, and marshy plants." The translator of the passage not inaptly' quotes by way of illustration a few lines from Cary's " Dante," describing the , seventh circle of the Inferno: — We entered on a forest where no track Of steps had worn away. Not verdant there The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light The boughs and tapering, but with knares' deformed And matted thick. Fruits there were none, - but thorns Instead with venom filled. Apart from the venomous thorns, the description well fits the rata forest of the Auckland Islands. Undoubtedly the somiprostrate character of the trees is due to the ■ unceasing violence of the westerly winds, which sweep acrofee the islands out of the vast wilderness of the Pacific. These sales have stamped their mark in all directions ou the vegetation of the southern islands. "In contrast to the gloomy rata forests there are found on the Auckland Islands glorious meadows with a wonderful array of brightly-coloured blossoms. The best-known of -,-fhese is Fairchild'e garden, called after the late captain of the Hinemoa. Unfortunately we weie several weeks too early to pee it in full blooxn. It lies on $be south side of Carnley Harbour, toward* the western entrance. There are to be found in thetc greatest magnificence, the pleurophyllum* and. ligusticums. PleuropnyUum is a' genus closely allied to __ the well-known' oolmisia, or mountain daisy, of the mainland, but its various species are fas. moie showy than any of ihe eelmisiae. They are in many respects ° not unlike gigantic cinerariw. The leaves of P. speoioeum form immense rosettes several feet in diameter, and, According to Kirk, in placets where it is exceptionally plentiful, "as the traveller walks at. ,-ng them, hie feet crash through the horizontal leaves as though he were walking on thin ice." * The flower heads rise ixom the centre of the rceette to the height of - from 2ft to and carry large numbers of daisylike flowers from lin to 2in in diameter, with purple centre' and -purplish or whitish rays, rhe Lignsticums are immense celery* like plants, with heavy masses of pink blossoms of the same general type as the flower of the carrot or . parsnip. L. latifolium, with its hug« acanthus-like leaves, often covers acres of ground almost to the exclusion of everything eke. On Disappointment Island the mollyhawks were everywhere nesting amongst it. In addition to these genera many others, which only rarely exhibit coloured flowers , on the mainland, display on these islands a brilliancy whioh led Hooker to say that no islands outside ihe tropics had such a ! wealth of flowered beauty as these. Thereis a. little veronica en both the Auckland and Campbell Islands, whose flowers shade from lavender to the deepest blue. . The genue Myosoti* never produces richly-ooloured flowear* on the! mainland., but on these islands there i*"a forget-me-not of the darkest blue. Bulbinella, a lily, is somewbat like a Urge leek, but has a red of flowers of the finest yellow blossoms. The celmisia* of the Southern Alps invariably have white flowers, generally with yellow centres like a Marguerite daisy. On the other hand, C. vernicoea, of the Southern Islands, has a rosette of shining green leaves, and dainty flowers with i centres of dark purple and white or purple | rays. Thi» list of bright-coloured flowers might be extended, but enough has been said to show that the blossoms of the subAntarctic Islands do Jiot share in the characteristic whiteness of those of New Zealand- Why this difference we do not know. Insects are scarce -on the Auckland Islands, and even more «o on the Campbell Islands. It cannot, therefore, be supposed that ihe rich colours ar« in any way due to their intervention. It may,, however, be pointed out thai, the flowers of the Swiss Alps and those of Arctic regions are also, in spite of the comparative absence of insects brilliantly coloured. The flora of Campbell Island, some 140 miles to the south-east, is very similar to that of the Auckland group, but it contain* fewer species, and these are much less luxuriant than they are in the more northernly islands. The roaring winter winds have bitten the mountain peaks into barrenness, and the last roots of tree and shrub fail from the uplands and mountain valleys, . Here there is no twisted rata forest. But only » dense scrub of grass, trees growing on the lower slopes of the hills and in the warmer eastern valleye. Hepe also the characteristic meadow vegetation is. fast- being destroyed by the hardy breed ol sheep which now overruns the island. The finer species of Ligustieum and Pleurophyllum are eaten out wherever met witn, so that they are now only to be found in the mountain fastnesses and on the face* of the lowland cliffs. The native tussock*, too. are fast being destroyed, and little 'vegetation is replacing them. Much of fiie island is therefore likely to become waste in a few years' time or overrun by the golden #U>ry of the. Bulbinellas, whioh the sheep refuse to touch. It is- fortunate indeed that botanists have been able to visit these Southern Islands before the hand of man has destroyed the primeval vegetation. In the older countries of the world it is impossible to find Nature free from artifice. We were especially fortunate in being able to land on Disappointment Island, where never botanist had been before and where plants grew as they had done for countless generations. Such a pleasure is impossible to scientists of older lands, and we feel that it more than compensates for any little discomfort or hardship, we may have ■ encountered in our

trip to the sub- Antarctic Islands. After all, the investigator here has some advantages which his brethren in^ Europe^ da. not share, ~; ' and "these "-perhaps morfc than "compensate'] /or the absence, of the libraries agd 'jthe laboratories' tha.t' are *of~such ; ~v i alue"to "the European worker.* - AY* -afc—4«asfc' *ha#e ■ "fresh fields and p^stores new^' anrd^nen' we meet with problems that—ace, as -rintefc. .eating to brolojnpts 'jstnd asuimjipp^tasrit &£ '■- biblbgy as those' met' with" in" "any other part of the world. „ •••<•,