CoLENSO. — Oil New Zealand Botany. 403 



6. Charace^. — A small order of peculiar water-plants con- 

 taining only two or three genera, of which we have two, Nitella 

 and CJiara, and, somewhat curiously, seeing their species are 

 few, three species of each. 



7. Lichens. — Of these strange aberrant vegetable produc- 

 tions we have several genera, and very many species of almost 

 all conceivable shapes and sizes, many of them being also very 

 rich in striking and bright colours, especially while living and 

 after rains. It is really a grand, a superb sight to see an old 

 tree, living or dead, in the still forests, closely covered with 

 lichens — literally bedizened — and looking magnificent in its 

 diversified multiform and many-coloured living decorations. 



8. Fungi, or the great Mushroom Order — whose manifold 

 shapes and forms are still more strange and bizarre than those 

 of the preceding order of lichens ; and, while some are very 

 small, among the minutest of all vegetable productions, others 

 are exceedingly large and heavy, even as much as, or more 

 than, a man can well lift. Many of them (like the common 

 mushroom) are of quick sudden growth, soft, and short-lived ; 

 while others are of very slow growth, exceedingly hard and 

 tough, and of long continuance. A few of our New Zealand 

 Fungi were articles of food with the ancient Maoris ; but the 

 principal edible one, Hirneola polytricJia (commonly known by 

 the appellative of the order, " fungus "), has long been a com- 

 mercial article of considerable export, so much as 339 tons, 

 valued officially at £15,581, having been collected in the foi'ests 

 in one year for the Chinese market, for the purpose of making 

 into soups. When dried (and it is only purchased in that 

 state) it is exceedingly light tough and horny, and will keep 

 well for many years. 



9. ALGiE, or marine and fresh-water weeds — of which our 

 seas and rivers have their full share. A few of the shore sea- 

 weeds were also used as articles of food by the ancient Maoris 

 residing near the sea — not, however, commonly, but as dainties; 

 and not only so, bat, when dried, sent as presents to friendly 

 tribes residing in the interior, who made the return in fat 

 forest-birds — pigeons and parson-birds — potted in their own 

 oil. 



Of those nine courts or natural divisions in the grand 

 temple of cryptogamic vegetable nature, I choose No. 5, 

 HepaticcB, for my subject to-night ; and the main cause of 

 my so doing is my having lately received a letter from the 

 Director of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens at Kew, containing a 

 very long list of Hepaticce. from the celebrated cryptogamic 

 expert, F. Stephani, of Leipzig, lately determined by him, 

 numbering 1,027 specimens (or, rather, separate packets), 

 being portion of a very large lot I had collected in our forests 

 during several years and sent to Kew last year. This list I now 



