Environmental influences on the vegetation of New Zealand

Abstract This review develops three themes, the first of which assesses how far lhe environment is reflected in the form and functioning of native plants. It is shown that the mild New Zealand winters favour evergreen trees with limited cold-tolerance, as well as life-forms such as cushion plants and tussock grasses. Shrubs and juvenile trees, with small leaves and slender, divaricating branchlets, also characteristic of New Zealand, probably resulted from the combined selection pressures of browsing, drought, and wind on a floristic pool deficient in the kinds of plants that resist these pressures in other parts of the world. Slow growth of some native trees adapts them to infertile soils. The tendency of many species to flower at three-yearly or longer intervals, is also discussed. Next, the adjustment of native vegetation to the existing environment is considered. For the South Island. J. T. Holloway developed an hypothesis of recent climatic change, based on anomalous distribution patterns in the beec...

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