392 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



of vascular plants up to 143. This is a comparatively small 

 flora ; but, as Mr. Cheeseman points out, it is in no danger 

 of being destroyed, and the Three Kings Islands will pro- 

 bably long remain a safe preserve of rare plants and rare birds. 

 Among the more distant islands of the New Zealand 

 region recently explored botanically, the first to claim our 

 attention is the Kermadec group. The group consists of 

 four principal, widely separated islands ; the largest, Sunday 

 Island, being about twenty miles in circumference and nearly 

 650 miles distant from Auckland ; or midway between 

 New Zealand and Tongatabou. The centre is occupied by 

 a crater more than a mile in diameter, the rim of which 

 rises to 1720 feet in its highest part. Previous to the visit 

 of our author, Mr. T. F. Cheeseman (5), almost nothing 

 was known of the vegetation of this or any of the other 

 islands of the group. Naturally, from the position of these 

 islands, the composition of the flora was looked forward to 

 with much interest. It has already been pointed out {ante, 

 p. 31) how absolutely the New Zealand and Australian 

 elements are wanting in the nearest parts of Polynesia. 

 The results of the botanical investigation of Sunday and 

 Macaulay Islands of the Kermadec group are instructive as 

 showing how strongly the New Zealand element predomi- 

 nates, and how probable the hypothesis of a land connec- 

 tion between Eastern Australia and New Zealand, including 

 intervening islands, though Cheeseman records it as his 

 opinion that the Kermadecs were not included in this con- 

 nection. Sunday Island, the only one thoroughly botanised 

 by him, is clothed with forest from the sea-shore to the 

 highest peaks ; and, although, as we shall see, the affinities 

 of the flora generally are much more strongly New Zealand 

 than Polynesian, "the prevailing tree, forming two-thirds 

 of the vegetation," is the common Polynesian Metrosideros 

 polymorpha. This species does not occur either in Aus- 

 tralia or in New Zealand or in Norfolk Island, but it is 

 generally diffused in Polynesia, extending eastward to the 

 Hawaiian, Marquesas and Pitcairn Islands. The Norfolk 

 Island palm, Rhopalostylis Baueri (Areca Baueri), or a 

 closely allied species, comes next in prominence and abun- 



