16 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 



having closer affinities with that of the North Island. A lengthy 

 stay was made at Dusky Sound in 1773, and Queen Charlotte. Sound 

 was revisited. Only 160 ferns and flowering-plants were collected, a 

 small gathering for a district so rich in plant-life as that including 

 the West Coast Sounds of Otago. 



The remains of Captain Cook's hut at Dusky Bay still stand, and 

 the spot was visited by the author some years ago. There nature is 

 exactly as it was at the time of Cook's visit. The same rich shrubbery 

 marks the shore ; kidney-ferns now, as then, clothe the forest-floor 

 and climb up the beech and pine trees, from whose boughs, too, de- 

 pend the long dark-green shoots of a drooping lycopod (Lycupodium 

 Billardieri). 



The elder Forstei 1 published an account of some of the plants 

 in a work bearing the ponderous title, ' Characteres Generum Plan- 

 tarum quas in insulis Maris Australis collegit. J. R. Forster." This 

 was followed by a work by the son, ' ' Florulae Insularum Australium 

 Prodromus," giving descriptions in Latin of 170 New Zealand plants; 

 but these descriptions are altogether too short to be of any real use. 



MENZIES, D'UEVILLE, AND RICHARD. 



In 1791, Captain Vancouver, of Arctic fame, visited Dusky Sound, 

 and in the dripping forests Mr. A. Menzies, the surgeon of the expedi- 

 tion, reaped an abundant harvest of the lower plants, which there 

 grow in the richest profusion the mosses and liverworts. Many of 

 these are beautifully figured in Sir W. J. Hooker's fine work, ' ' Musci 

 Exotici," which appeared in 1818-20. For twenty-seven years to have 

 elapsed between the collecting and publishing of these plants speaks 

 volumes for the leisurely methods pursued by scientific men a hundred 

 years ago as contrasted with the haste of the present age. 



And now the French come into our story, for science is cosmo- 

 politan. In 1822, Admiral D'Urville, then an officer, but five years 

 later captain of the same vessel, the "Astrolabe," occupied himself 

 on the shores of Cook Strait in making collections, in company with 

 an excellent naturalist, M. Lesson. The plants they gathered were 

 described by A. Rich?,rd in a sterling work bearing the title, ' Essay 

 d'une Flore de la. Nouvelle Zelande." So well did Richard perform 

 his task that the book is a necessary adjunct to the library of any 

 New Zealand botanist at the present day, especially as it clears up 

 certain points left in doubt by the Forsters. The names of D'Urville. 



