A NEW SPECIES OF DRAPETES. 497 
out an able collector, (Mr. Burke) to North-western America 
and California, through whom we have every prospect of 
seeing this splendid tree introduced to our own pleasure- 
grounds and plantations. 
Tas. XVI. A fruiting specimen of Castanea chrysophylla, 
and a flowering catkin :—nat. size. 
Descr tiplion of a new species of DRAPETES from New Zealand ; 
by W. J. H. 
(With a Plate.—Ta». XVII.) 
The genus Drapetes, of the order Thymelee, was founded 
by Lamarck, upon a solitary species detected by Commerson 
in the Straits of Magelhaen, and named by him Drapetes 
muscosa. The same plant was found by D’Urville on the 
highest point of Mount Chátellux in the Falkland Islands. I 
have already, in speaking of a new Calceolaria of New 
Zealand (Icones Plantarum, vol. 6. Tas. DLXI), had occa- 
sion to observe an affinity in the vegetation of that country 
to that of the more temperate parts of South America, par- 
ticularly in the existence of certain genera which had pre- 
viously been supposed to be peculiar to the extratropical 
portion of the great South American Continent. The disco- 
very of a new Drapetes in New Zealand serves to strengthen 
that affinity. I first received beautiful specimens of this 
species that were gathered by Dr. Dieffenbach, on the summit 
of Mount Egmont, and I find the same in a collection of 
plants kindly given me by Mr. Bidwill from the summit of 
Tongariro, another high mountain of the Northern Island of 
New Zealand. I have the pleasure to name this after its first 
discoverer ; 
Drapetes Dieffenbachii, Mook.; fruticosa, caule repente 
ramosissimo, folis dense imbricatis linearibus obtusis apice 
barbatis, floribus brevissime pedicellatis foliis i immersis, peri- 
anthio fauce squamato, pedicellis ovarioque apice barbatis. 
(TAs. XVII.) 
Has, High mountains of the Northern Island, New 
