Papers. 99 



was tliL' (lisi.ovfri.1' of Uic [jlanl. but tluit insteiul uf aeiuiiiii;- it to Eii^UukI us he 

 originally intended he yave it to the llev. Richard Taylor, who was Then on the 

 point of paying a visit to the Old Country. The concluding sentence of the letter 

 indicates that Mr. Williamson has a grievance against Mr. Taylor because Dr. 

 Hooker (now Sir Joseph) associated the name of the veteran missionary with the 

 plant. 



The Kev. 15. Taylor came to New Zealand in March, 183U, and paid his first 

 visit to England in 18.35. Hence the late Mr. Williamson must have found his 

 .■specimen early in that year. Possibly Mr. D. H. Williamson was led to make the 

 claim on behalf of his late father on reading an article in Vol. xxviii of the 

 Transactions where the late Mr. T. Kirk mentions 1857 as the probable date of 

 Taylor's discovery. But, as Mr. Hill points out, there is a sketch of the Dacly- 

 ianthus in Taylor's " Te Ika a Maui," which was published in 1855. 



In the second edition of " Te Ika a Maui'" (page 697) Taylor says, "I first 

 found it [Dactyhmtlius) on a mountain-range near Hikurangi, retiuning from Taupo, 

 and noticed it growing among the roots of a tree near the path. . T . Mr. Wil- 

 liamson afterwards brought me another specimen which lie had found in clearing some 

 ground. The whole plant and flowers were entirely covered with vegetable mould ; 

 the stem between the bracts was of a rusty brown. There were twenty-five flowers 

 open all at once ; another excrescence had eighteen. He states the odour of one 

 plant was something like that of a ripe melon, whilst the other had a disagreeable 

 earthy smell." 



JJr. Hookei-. who descriljed and nan)ed the plant, says, " For a specimen of 

 this singular plant I am indebted to my friend the Rev. R. Taylor, of New Zea- 

 land, who brought a fragment of it to England in 1856, and, on my pointing out 

 its probable interest, promised to procure more on his return to New Zealand. This 

 he did. and early in the present year (1859) I had the pleasure of receiving from 

 him a dried specimen of a female plant, a perfect male inflorescence in a letter, 

 .and a pen-and-ink sketch of the peduncle and flowers, with notes on the same." 



The most important evidence was discovered by Mrs. Harper, the wife of Mr. 

 H. S. G. Harper, in whose possession the Rev. R. Taylor's impublished journals 

 are. The whole entry for the day is copied out exactly as it stands, except that 

 the writer of these notes has supplied the punctuation-marks. 



■' March 18, 1845. — It was a rainy night, and very cold, wet, and cheerless. 

 In walking through the dense, humid forest I was soon as wet as if I had been 

 in the water. We had constantly been ascending and descending. We crossed the 

 Mangawera [Mangawhero] after dinner. The stream here makes a remarkable 

 noise, which I fancy is occasioned by its flowing through some cavern in the rock. 

 The Natives say it is a large tuna. I found the Parei myself to-day. It is cer- 

 tainly one of the most remarkable vegetable productions I have seen, and appears 

 to be the union of fungus with the plant. I passed several, taking them for toad- 

 stools, but one more remarkable than the rest caused me to stop and gather it. I 

 then found that it was a plant in full flower, although very much resembling a 

 fungus. It has no leaves, and has a calyx containing a kind of pollen with rather 

 a disagreeable smell. The Natives say it is more prolific than the potato, but will 

 only grow in the forest. We passed thiough several small nionkit< to-day and had 

 some very wearisome and precipitous ascents. We are encamped for the night 

 where the road for Pulcehika branches off from that to Ikurangi [Hikurangi]."" 



This quotation, the compiler ventures to think, establishes the fact that the 

 Rev. R. Taj'lor discovered the Darti/lantliKt' in 1845. It is not improbable that 

 the specimen received by Hooker in 1856 is the one Mr. Williamson refers to in 

 his letter. But as Taylor had seen the plant more than ten years previously, he 

 could hardly be expected to represent it to Hooker as the discovery of another 

 man. Besides, he is (juite frank in mentioning the specimen he received from 

 Williamson. So I think the hint in the conclusion of Mr. Williamson's letter that 

 Taylor was guilty of something akin to sharp practice has nothing to support it. 



These notes have been compiled to vindicate the character of tlie Rev. R. Taylor, 

 a man who worked strenuously not only for the good of the Natives, but also for 

 the public generally. Ijike many mcne (jverworked men, he found time to study the 

 natural history of the district over which he made so many journeys. He wrote 

 two books, the second edition of one of these being practically a new work, numeroijs 

 articles of a scientific nature, besides many volumes of unpublished matter. 



Unfortunately, no biography of Taylor has yet been written. Until some one 

 accomplishes that work the man will remain unknown. Suffice it to say here that, 

 even if the evidence in his diary had not been forthcoming, the man was so up- 

 right in character that he would never have been guilty of attempting to appropriate 

 another man's discoverv. 



