![Thumbnail: [Volume 55, 1924 page 438]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_55/thumbnails/rsnz_55_00_0523_0438_ac_02.gif)
I. The Forest, Price's Valley.
Price's Valley lies between Kaituna Valley and Little River, and contains one of the few remnants of lowland forest still existing in a state of good preservation, and probably the best stand of black and white pine now to be found on the peninsula. Since publication of the previous paper* opportunity has been found of examining more closely than heretofore the vegetation of this valley. We are thus enabled to form a better picture of the original lowland forest of Banks Peninsula.
The Banks Peninsula Botanical Subdistrict might be defined in many ways. Thus a sufficient discrimination of it would be a district in which Alectryon excelsum and Olearia fragantissima occur together; but, though this would separate it probably from all other forest areas of New Zealand, the description would be of little value to the botanist, as Olearia fragrantissima is a rare and disappearing species. One might rely, however, on other species for a separation. It is doubtful, for example, whether the following species could be found commonly together elsewhere—Nothopanax anomalum, Teucridium parviflorum, Pseudopanax ferox—as they can be in the district between Gebbie's Pass and Little River. Again, Banks Peninsula might be defined as being characterized by the presence of certain northern species and the absence of others. Thus the following species might be expected to occur and do not: Cordyline Banksii, Melicope ternata, Olea Cunninghamii. Their absence separates the forest here from that on the Kaikoura coast, which it most nearly resembles; and the presence of the karaka and the nikau-palm distinguishes it from the tree-clad districts farther south. From these and from other similar considera-
[Footnote] * Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 51, p. 355, 1919.
![Thumbnail: [Volume 55, 1924 page 439]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_55/thumbnails/rsnz_55_00_0524_0439_ac_02.gif)
tions it becomes clear that the forest of Banks Peninsula is sufficiently characteristic to be regarded as a separate sub-area. It is so considered by Cockayne in his Vegetation of New Zealand (p. 138).
At present, however, owing to the almost complete destruction of the original plant covering by fire, and in other ways, it is difficult to find means for reconstructing in imagination the original plant associations. Fortunately, in Price's Valley there is still a remnant of the primitive forest left on the valley-floor, through which neither fire nor sawmill has been, though, unfortunately, stock have run in it; and there is also a portion of the same forest at the head of the valley at an altitude of 1,500 ft. and upwards. We know of no other place on the peninsula where fragments of the lowland and upland forest are left in a state of such good preservation in the same valley. This enables us to confirm more definitely certain conclusions regarding the forest, arrived at tentatively before.
From this area it appears that the large trees on the valley-floors of the peninsula were chiefly black and white pine with a comparatively small admixture of totara. As the valley narrowed the black and white pines were replaced by totara, which constituted the chief timber-tree of the hillsides. Above 1,500 ft. Podocarpus totara became rarer, and plants of P. Hallii appeared, and soon predominated. At the same altitude occasional plants of Libocedrus were to be found. In the valley referred to there is a great break, however, in the forest between about 200 ft. and 1,000 ft., where now nothing but second growth occurs, so that the changes cannot be followed in detail.
In the lower forest there is a great variety of shrubs, including such plants already mentioned as are elsewhere rare in company—Teucridium, Pseudopanax ferox, Nothopanax anomalum, Melicytus micranthus. Several specimens of Olearia fragrantissima were observed at a somewhat higher altitude. Pseudopanax ferox is replaced by P. crassifolium below 1,000 ft., and Rubus australis becomes much more abundant, while the huge lianes of R. cissoides are no longer to be seen. The point where the kahikatea originally passed out of the forest cannot now be determined, but probably it was below 1,000 ft. Above this the forest takes on the characteristics of the totara association described in the previous paper.