488 ISLAXD LIFE part ii 



ists. Sir Joseph Hooker, in his most instructive and 

 masterly essay on the flora of Australia, says : — " Under 

 whatever aspect I regard the flora of Australia and of New 

 Zealand, I find all attempts to theorise on the possible 

 causes of their community of feature frustrated by anom- 

 alies in distribution, such as I believe no two other similarly 

 situated countries in the globe present. Everywhere else 

 I recognise a parallelism or harmony in the main common 

 features of contiguous floras, which conveys the impression 

 of their generic aflinity, at least, being affected by migra- 

 tion from centres of dispersion in one of them, or in some 

 adjacent country. In this case it is widely different. Re- 

 garding the question from the Australian point of view, it 

 is impossible in the present state of science to reconcile 

 the fact of Acacia, Eucalyj^tus, Casuarina, Callitris, &c., 

 being absent in New Zealand, with any theory of trans- 

 oceanic migration that may be adopted to explain the 

 presence of other Australian plants in New Zealand ; and 

 it is very difficult to conceive of a time or of conditions 

 that could explain these anomalies, except by going back 

 to epochs when the prevalent botanical as well as geograph- 

 ical features of each were widely different from what they 

 are now. On the other hand, if I regard the question 

 from the New Zealand point of view, I find such broad 

 features of resemblance, and so many connecting links that 

 afford irresistible evidence of a close botanical connection, 

 that I cannot abandon the conviction that these great dif- 

 ferences will j)i'esent the least difficulties to whatever 

 theory may explain the whole case." I will now state, as 

 briefly as possible, what are the facts above referred to as 

 being of so anomalous a character, and there is little diffi- 

 culty in doing so, as we have them fully set forth, with 

 admirable clearness, in the essay above alluded to, and in 

 the same writer's Introduction to tJic Flora of New Zealand, 

 only requiring some slight modifications, owing to the later 

 discoveries which are given in the Handbook of the New 

 Zecdand Flora. 



Confining ourselves always to flowering plants, we find 

 that the flora of New Zealand is a very poor one, consider- 

 ing the extent of surface, and the favourable conditions of 



