226 Transactionn . — Botany. 



Inteoduction. 



The Southern Islands of New Zealand consist of several 

 groups of small islands — namely, the Snares, Auckland 

 Islands, Campbell Island, Macquarie Island, Antipodes 

 Islands, and Bounty Islands — lying in the South Pacific 

 Ocean between the parallels of 54° 44' and 47° 43' south 

 latitude and 159° 49' and 179° east longitude. The distance 

 and direction of each of these groups from the South Cape of 

 Stewart Island is respectively: The Snares, 60 miles S.W. ; 

 the Auckland Group, 190 miles S. by W. ; Campbell Island, 

 330 miles S. by E. ; Macquarie Island, 570 miles S.W. by S. ; 

 the Antipodes Islands, 490 miles E.S.E. ; the Bountv Islands, 

 490 miles E. 



As is well known, these Southern Islands of New Zealand 

 form a part of that ring of small islands which stretch right 

 round the globe between the parallels of 45° and 65^ south 

 latitude, frequently at very great distances from one another, 

 but which nevertheless have certain Fuegian"^' species of plants 

 in common. Of these latter, the Southern Islands of New 

 Zealand possess by far the smallest share, their floi'a as a 

 whole being very closely allied to that of New Zealand. This 

 latter extremely important fact w^as discovered by Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, who on that account separated the islands lying to 

 the south of New Zealand from the other so-called " Antarctic 

 islands," and devoted the first volume of his magnificent 

 " Flora Antarctica" (46) to their botany. This work, published 

 in 1847, was the outcome of collections and observations uiade 

 by the distinguished author himself, assisted by Mr. Lyall. 

 during the stay of about one month in Auckland and Campbell 

 Islands (19th November to 17th December, 1840) of the 

 Antarctic expedition commanded by Sir James Eoss (91). 

 Prior to this — in the previous year, indeed — the Auckland 

 Islands had been visited by two other scientific expeditions — 

 the French Antarctic expedition under Admiral D'Urville and 

 the American Wilkes expedition. Of these two, the French was 

 by far the most important from the botanical point of view : 

 the collections were large, although not nearly equal in extent 

 to those of Hooker ; while, on the other hand, the American 

 expedition did little botanically. Plad this latter, as originally 

 intended, been accompanied by Asa Gray the botanical results 

 would doubtless have been very different, but owing to the 

 many delays hindering the expedition setting forth the great 

 American botanist finally declined to accompany it (25). 



The botanical collections of the French expedition were made 

 in part by MM. Hombron and Jacquinot and in part by the 



• For explanation of the term "Puegian," see "History of the 

 Flora," further on. 



