492 Transactions. — Botany. 



authors, the botany of New Zealand would have been far 

 better known sixty years ago than was possible under the 

 conditions that then existed, a large amount of error and con- 

 fusion would have been avoided, and the synonymy of many 

 species greatly simplified. Many of Solander's names, which 

 in the majority of species are most appropriate, • have been 

 applied to different plants, while others have not come into 

 use in any way, many New Zealand plants having been de- 

 scribed by Continental writers who had no knowledge of 

 Solander's excellent work. 



It is perhaps not generally known that Sir Joseph Banks 

 was extremely anxious to accompany Cook on his second 

 voyage, and succeeded in having a grant of £4,000 voted by 

 the House of Commons to pay for the necessary assistance ; 

 but, owing to the resolution not being sufficiently well defined, 

 the Comptroller of the Navy, who from some obscure cause 

 wished to thwart Banks, succeeded in preventing him from 

 joining the expedition. John Eeynhold Forster and his son 

 George were appointed chief naturalists, and received the sum 

 voted by the Government at the instigation of Sir Joseph 

 Banks. Their botanical work, although of great value, was 

 not equal to that of Banks and Solander either in extent or 

 quality. Their collection of New Zealand phaenoganas and 

 ferns comprised only 160 species, of which about 150 were 

 published in George Forster's " Florulae Insularum Austra- 

 lium Prodromus." A few others were described in " Charac- 

 teres Generum" and " De Plantis Esculentis Insularum 

 Oceani Australis Commentatio Botanica," but the descriptions 

 are very meagre, and suffer greatly by contrast with the ex- 

 cellent work of Dr. Solander. The specimens collected by 

 the Forsters were arranged in fasciculi and distributed to 

 various museums and private collections. Unfortunately, in 

 some instances a plant has received different names in different 

 fasciculi, resulting in a large amount of error and confusion. 

 Their drawings of the plants and animals collected during the 

 voyage were purchased by Sir Joseph Banks for £400, and 

 are included in the Banksian Collections now in the British 

 Museum. It is worth while to remark that the three works 

 already mentioned, with another, " De Plantis Magellanicis et 

 Atlanticis," all published between 1776 and 1787, comprise all 

 that was published respecting the botany of Cook's first and 

 second voyages, and therefore all that was published respecting 

 the botany of New Zealand prior to M. A. Eichard's " Essai 

 d'une Flore de la Nouvelle Zelande," in 1832. In this con- 

 nection I should like to state my sense of personal indebted- 

 ness to C. E. Carter, Esq., who, at my suggestion, has kindly 

 placed copies of these books in the fine collection of works on 

 New Zealand which he has so generously presented to the 



