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(7) Inland Cliff and Rock.
Owing to the structure of the hills, rocky cliffs and faces are abundant, and there is a well-developed and highly specialized rock-vegetation, varying considerably with the altitude and aspect. It may be readily studied on the Lyttelton Hills up to a height of 1,500 ft. On the drier rocks with a northerly aspect are found Hymenanthera crassifolia, Corokia Cotoneaster. Sophora prostrata, and usually near the sea Clematis afoliata, as the most characteristic shrubs. Amongst ferns and herbaceous plants the following occur in such situations: Gymnogramme rutaefolia, Polystichum Richardi, Cheilanthes Sieberi, Chenopodium triandrum, Linum monogynum, Epilobium cinereum, Senecio lautus, and more rarely Rhagodia nutans. A traverse of the hills—a distance perhaps of not more than 50 yards—to the moister rocks on the southern side shows a very different and unique vegetation. The most characteristic shrub is now Veronica Lavaudiana. Metrosideros hypericifolia and Cyathodes acerosa also occur; whilst the ferns already mentioned are replaced by Polypodium grammitidis, and on the highest peaks shrivelled specimens of Hymenophyllum multifidum and occasionally
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other species of Hymenophyllum are to be found. The most characteristic plant, however, is a species of Senecio, which, as Wall has shown, between Lyttelton Heads and Gebbie's Pass is S. saxifragoides, but elsewhere is Senecio lagopus in a large and well-developed form. Veronica Lavaudiana is found above 800 ft. only, but Senecio saxifragoides comes occasionally down to sea-level, though usually found above 800 ft. In places also Angelica montana, Anisotome Enysii (?), Earina suaveolens, Libertia grandiflora, and Raoulia glabra become members of the rock association; but these species are to be found on all aspects of the hill, and, with the exception of the plant here called Anisotome Enysii, can scarcely be called distinctive species. This Senecio - Veronica Lavaudiana association is highly characteristic of Banks Peninsula, and is met with nowhere else. Above 1,500 ft. the distinction between the vegetation of rock-faces with northern and southern aspects tends to disappear. Dracophyllum acicularifolium var. uniflorum now becomes a highly characteristic shrub of the cliffs and rocky faces, and the subalpine species, to be described later, begin to appear.
To see the lower subalpine element at its best one may go to a cliff on the south-west face of a peak—apparently nameless—between Cass Peak and Cooper's Knobs. This hill is under 1,600 ft., but has an unsheltered exposure towards the south-west, and this probably accounts for the great variety of plants to be found on its face. Amongst the smaller forms may be mentioned Hydrocotyle microphylla, Colobanthus Muelleri, Myosotis pygmaea, Polypodium australe var. pumil, Polypodium grammitidis (well developed), Hymenophyllum multifidum, Geranium sessiliflorum, Helichrysum bellidioides. On the Lyttelton Hills these species are not to be met with at the lower levels, though elsewhere on the peninsula, where the rainfall is higher, they come down much lower. Lycopodium fastigiatum, Veronica Lavaudiana, Gaultheria antipoda (the erect form), and Dracophyllum uniflorum also occur here in abundance.