INSULAR FLORAS. 

 PART II. 



BOTANICAL enterprise in New Zealand is very active, 

 owing doubtless to the fact that very early in the 

 settlement of the country by Europeans the community had 

 a good foundation on which to build a superstructure ; and 

 this may be said of Australia. Even now there are better 

 general works, of moderate cost, on the botany of our 

 colonies at the Antipodes than on the European flora. 

 Allan Cunningham should not be forgotten in the history 

 of botanical discovery in New Zealand ; but the botanical 

 results of Sir James Ross's Antarctic expedition by Sir J. 

 D. Hooker, is the foundation to which I allude. On this 

 basis the colonists have not only worked out the details of 

 the botany of the main islands, but almost all of the outly- 

 ing small islands, such as the Snares, Auckland, Campbell, 

 Macquarie, Antipodes, Bounty and Kermadecs, have been 

 visited and almost thoroughly explored. But I will first 

 take the main islands, though I do not propose entering 

 into much detail concerning their flora, because the subject 

 has been discussed over and over again. Since the publi- 

 cation of Sir Joseph Hooker's Handbook in 1864, no com- 

 plete account of the flora, so far as it is known, has appeared, 

 though one has long been promised and expected. In the 

 meantime an enormous number of proposed new species 

 have been described ; that is to say, an enormous number 

 in proportion to the whole. Hooker's Handbook contains 

 descriptions of 935 species of flowering plants belonging to 

 302 genera ; and since the publication of that work descrip- 

 tions of about 540 reputed new species have appeared in 

 the Transactions of the Neiv Zealand Institute, to say 

 nothing of those published elsewhere. A large number 

 of them are distinct and well-defined species. On the other 

 hand, more than half of them, probably, would not be ac- 

 cepted by the majority of botanists. With the exception of 

 one very interesting new genus, to be referred to again, 

 they all belong to previously known genera ; and such 



