CoLENSO. — On Nciv Zealand Botany 401 



the bush district) to furnish a paper for this evening's meet- 

 ing, I come before you very much in the character of an 

 " emergency man." And, in thinking over what I should 

 bring before you, I have determined to say something concern- 

 ing what I liave frequently seen with delight while away 

 among our dense forests in the interior. 



Of course you know of the two great living kingdoms of 

 nature — namely, (1) the animal and (2) the vegetable. 



This latter, the vegetable or botanical kingdom, is very 

 properly divided into two great groups— the phgenogamous o}- 

 flowering, and the cryptogamous or non-flowering. (And here 

 I will say, for the benefit of the younger portion of my 

 audience, that I will endeavour to explain all hard scientific 

 and technical words and names as I go on.) 



The phaenogamous or flowering groi p contains two great 

 natural classes — the monocotyledons and the dicotyledons. 

 To the monocotyledon (or one-seed-blade) class belong all 

 plants of the grass, corn, lily, palm, onion, and very many 

 others, including the large orchideous order ; these all take 

 their one distinctive name from the single cotyledon or shoot 

 (sprout or tiny blade) which emerges from the seed or grain in 

 germinating : while to the dicotyledon class belong all plants 

 whose seed possess tiuo cotyledons, loaves, or seed-lobules, as 

 are so clearly shown in germinating in the pea, bean, radish, 

 mustard, clover, &c. 



The cryptogamous or non-flowering class is so called 

 from not possessing perfect flowers, as are found in the flower- 

 ing group ; or, at all events, from their not being so apparent. 

 In this great third class there are nine orders, which I shall 

 briefly mention, and in so doing give you famihar instances of 

 them all. 



1. Ferns — for which, as you know, our colony bears a 

 great botanical name from the rarity and beauty of many of 

 them ; and not only so, but some of them were to the ancient 

 Maoris verily "the stafl" of life" (as bread-corn has been 

 called with us) — the common fern, the ariche of the Maoris, 

 Pteris escidenta = edible Pterls, as it was rightly named by 

 Forster, the able botanist who accompanied Captain Cook on 

 his second voyage to New Zealand and the South Seas, and 

 who often witnessed the general use made by the Maoris of 

 its roots. This fern was of very great value as an article of 

 food to the old Maoris, and was dug up and harvested and 

 stored by them with much care for future use. And here I 

 should inform you that, although this species of fern is so 

 very common throughout all New Zealand, yet the best and 

 prized edible root was not so common, and only found scat- 

 tered in suitable soils and places : hence the common error 

 respecting it by the settlers, who, in ploughing up the ordinary 

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