HOW THE STORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN. 21 



Colenso's botanical waitings are voluminous, and consist chiefly of 

 papers published in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." 

 dealing with new species of plants, or what he considered to be new. 

 Many New Zealand plants were named in his honour, including the 

 semis Colensoa. 



SIR JOSEPH HOOKER AND THE SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW 



ZEALAND. 



Sir Joseph Hooker was botanist to the famous Antarctic Expedition 

 which left England in 1839 under the command of Sir James Ross. So 

 far as the Dominion is concerned, Hooker visited the Auckland and 

 Campbell Islands, and also the Bay of Islands, where he and Colenso 

 met. He published his splendid results in several magnificent volumes, 

 as a part of the botany of the antarctic voyage, with life-like coloured 

 plates, under the titles " Florae Novae- Zelandiae," and " Flora Ant- 

 arctica." But Hooker's work on the New Zealand flora does not 

 end here. By an arrangement with the New Zealand Government 

 ho wrote the classical " Handbook to the New Zealand Flora," which 

 deals not only with the flowering-plants, but with the ferns, mosses, 

 liverworts, fungi, and seaweeds. When it is borne in mind that 

 Hooker was compelled to work almost exclusively from dried and 

 frequently scanty material, his results are little short of marvellous. 

 It is true that in some cases recent research has thrown new light on 

 his conclusions, but that does not in the least detract from the ad- 

 mirable accuracy of his work, which will ever remain an object-lesson 

 for New Zealand botanists, and an edifice not to be rebuilt, but merely 

 to be added to. 



Hooker's work as a field naturalist, too, in the subantarctic islands 

 was most thorough. Only one who has been to that region of wind 

 and rain, and has attempted to make a botanical collection, can ap- 

 preciate the completeness of his collections, and marvel at the immense 

 amount of work accomplished in so brief a time. 



THE BOTANICAL EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTHERN ALPS. 



Between the publication of the "Flora Novae-Zelandiae " and the 

 Handbook many important botanical explorations were undertaken in 

 New Zealand, and the alpine flora of the South Island stood especi- 

 ally revealed in all its richness. This result was brought about in 



