CoLENSO.-^0?2 new Cryptogamic Plants. 278 



not unreasonable ; (2) are eminently pleasing, illuminating, and 

 informing ; (3) are qualified to raise our human nature ; and 

 (4) to lead us on to more correct views of the Great Father and 

 Author of all. Once more will I quote a few highly expressive 

 lines from my favourite poet Thomson : — 



" Nature, attend ! join every living soul, 

 Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 

 In adoration join ; and ardent raise 

 One general song — to Him ! 



Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, 

 In mingled clouds to Hiii, whose sun exalts, 

 Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints." 



But to leave the mountain-tops, first gilded by the sun, and 

 the purer air of the balmy pine forests and heights, not to men- 

 tion their kindred poetical musings, and to descend to the plains 

 — to the technical and prosaic facts and descriptions of our few 

 little Crypts. — I have to observe that four of the orders of the 

 great Liunaean class Cryptogamia are here represented — viz., 

 Filices, Lycopods, JSLiisci, and HepaticcB. Of the first order, or 

 ferns, I have only one novelty, a species of Lomaria ; of the 

 second, or Lycopodiinn, I have also but one new species; of 

 the third, or mosses, I have five new species, belonging to three 

 genera — viz., Polytrichum, Hi/popterygium, and Hookeria, all fine 

 mosses and well represented here in New Zealand ; and of the 

 fourth, or liverworts, I have 40 species, pertaining to no less 

 than 11 genera, some of which, as Jungerma7iuia, Plagiochila, 

 Mastigohryum, and FniUania, were already remarkably large and 

 cosmopolite. In the " Synopsis Hepaticarum," published 40 

 years ago, PlagiocJdla possess 189 species, Jungernuinnia 195 

 species, Masiigubryum 64 species, and Frullania 155 species ; and 

 these large numbers of species have been subsequently increased 

 with many more ; indeed, out of this present small collection 

 there are no less than 5 species of Plagiochila, 16 species of 

 Mastigohryum, and 6 species of Frullania ; while others of those 

 smaller and rarer genera now added to by me are still very 

 limited, both as to the number of their known species and their 

 area. 



The total number of Cryptogamic novelties described in this 

 paper is 47 ; and while all will prove interesting to the working 

 botanist and devoted disciple of Nature, some of them, it is 

 believed, will prove no less so to the cultivated and cursory, 

 though less technically skilled, observer. 



Lastly, and in conclusion, (as I do not wish to repeat my 

 former observations over again, though equally applicable here,) 

 I would respectfully beg my hearers, being members of the 

 Institute, to read and note what I have said in my introduction 

 in my paper of last year on this subject, in connection with this 

 present paper. 



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