HOW TI1K STORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN. 15 



Banks and Solander, whose names are always bracketed together 

 in New Zealand botany, investigated only a comparatively few r places 

 on the coast. These were : Queen Charlotte Sound and Admiralty 

 Bay, in the South Island ; and, in the North Island, Poverty Bay, 

 Tolaga Bay, Anaura, Mercury Bay, the Thames River (near its mouth), 

 and the Bay of Islands. They collected in all 360 species of flowering- 

 plants and ferns a remarkably large collection considering the diffi- 

 culties they had to encounter a land without roads, and Natives 

 who at any moment might prove hostile. One of their ' finds ' 

 deserves a passing word. This is the beautiful shrubby groundsel 

 (Senecio perdicioides), which they collected at Tolaga Bay, but of which 

 no more specimens were gathered for more than a hundred years. 

 But now, since its rediscovery some time ago, it has been introduced 

 into cultivation, and may be admired in many gardens. 



Banks caused about two hundred fine folio copperplate engrav- 

 ings to be prepared, and descriptions of more than three hundred 

 plants were written by Solander. Plates and descriptions both are 

 preserved in the British Museum, but, marvellous to relate, they 

 have never been published ! 



THE FORSTERS, FATHER AND Sox. 



Sir Joseph Banks's explorations in the vast unknown lands of 

 the south spurred him on to fresh exertions. He accordingly made 

 arrangements to join Cook's second voyage, the Government of Eng- 

 land accepting his services, as well it might. So extensive were the 

 preparations he made that he was obliged to specially raise money to 

 meet the expenses. He engaged, so we read, " Zofltany the painter, 

 three draughtsmen, two secretaries, and nine servants acquainted 

 with the modes of preserving animals and plants." The Comptroller 

 of the Navy, however, succeeded in putting so many obstacles in 

 Banks's way that he withdrew in disgust from the project. Not- 

 withstanding all this, Banks, to his everlasting credit, took great 

 interest in the voyage, and succeeded in getting Dr. John Reinhold 

 Forster, with his son John George, appointed naturalists to the ex- 

 pedition. 



This second voyage of Captain Cook was of special interest to the 

 botany of New Zealand, since a portion of the real South Island vege- 

 tation was investigated for the first time, that of Queen Charlotte 

 Sound, examined by Banks and Solander on the previous voyage, 



