IV.— CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



Art. XLIII. — Studies on the Chemistry of the Netv Zealand 



Flora. 



By T. H. Easterfield, Professor of Chemistry in Victoria 

 College, and B. C. Aston, Chemist to the Department 

 of Agriculture. 



{Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 24th July, 1900.] 



PART I. THE TUTU PLANT. 



The standard to which the study of any branch of science 

 attains in a community may be accurately gauged by the 

 quantity and quality of the research work produced by the 

 members of that community. It is therefore to be regretted 

 that, whereas the biological sciences have attracted in New 

 .Zealand a large and enthusiastic body of workers, chemical 

 research has been almost entirely neglected, except in so far 

 as its application to the mineral resources of the colony might 

 be expected to yield a direct financial return. In consequence 

 of this indifference to the value of chemical investigation very 

 little is known about the chemistry of our native plants, a 

 subject of the greater importance since the flora of these 

 Islands is so largely endemic. The field for investigation is 

 wide, and much work must be done before our knowledge of 

 the subject can be placed upon a satisfactory basis. The 

 authors of the present paper, however, hope by their own 

 researches, and even more by inducing others to carry on 

 similar inquiries, to lay the foundation for a fairly complete 

 knowledge of the characteristic constituents of the more im- 

 portant New Zealand plants. The tutu has been chosen for 

 the first of these investigations because it is the most widely 

 spread and the best known of the native poisonous plants. A 

 great interest therefore attaches to it. 



The poisonous nature of the tutu is well known ; of the 

 animals brought by Captain Cook,* both of the sheep and one 

 of the goats appear to have died from the effects of the plant. t 

 Of the cows brought by the early Canterbury settlers, two 



* Voyages. 



f Lauder Lindsay, B. and F. Med. and Chir. Rev., No. 61, July, 1865. 



