436 Transactions. 



Lastly, there is Pittosporum obcordatum, the subject of the 

 present memoir, which, was discovered by Raoul at Akaroa 

 about 1840, and which, after being lost sight of for more than 

 sixty years, has been lately refound by Mr. R. H. Matthews 

 at Kaitaia, a station six hundred miles to the north of the ori- 

 ginal locality. 



Now, it is quite possible that careful investigation may prove 

 that in some of the instances quoted above we are not dealing 

 with a single species, but with two distinct though closely allied 

 species having a different geographical range. In the case of 

 Danthonia hromoides it seems very doubtful whether the Auck- 

 land Island plant is conspecific with the northern one. More 

 probably we have here two species — one endemic in the Auck- 

 land Islands, the other, to which the name " hromoides " should 

 be restricted, found only on the rocky coast-line of the North 

 Island. Similarly it may be questioned if Bidwill's specimens 

 of Urtica australis, said to have been collected near Wellington, 

 are really identical with the typical form from the Auckland 

 Islands. They may be referable to another and much more 

 common species, a supposition which would at once explain the 

 fact that all recent attempts to find the true V . australis on the 

 shores of Cook Strait have failed. As the existence of any 

 species in widely separated localities is in itself a remarkable 

 circumstance, it is not only natural, but highly desirable, that 

 the evidence upon which such statements rest should be carefully 

 examined and scrutinised from all points of view. 



The recent discovery of Pittosporum ohcordatum at Kaitaia 

 has undoubtedly added another remarkable instance of dis- 

 continuous distribution to those already on record, and it is 

 not at all surprising that attempts have been made to offer an 

 explanation. As Raoul botanised at the Bay of Islands as well 

 as at Akaroa, it has been suggested that his specimens may 

 have been obtained in the first-mentioned locality, which is only 

 fifty miles distant from Kaitaia. This view has been adopted 

 in Laing and Blackwell's " Plants of New Zealand," and in some 

 newspaper writings of Dr. Cockayne. But it is by no means 

 difficult to prove that the facts will not adniit of this interpre- 

 tation. 



Pittosporum ohcordatum was first described by Raoul in the 

 " Annales des Sciences Naturelles " for 1844 ; but a fuller 

 account, accompanied by a beautiful plate, was given in his 

 " Choix de Plantes de la Nouvelle Zelande," issued in 1846. 

 In it Raoul gives the habitat as " Akaroa, in umbrosis humi- 

 disque nemoribus," and he adds at the close of the description 

 the remark (to which I invite special attention) " Florebat 

 Decembre." Since Raoul's time Akaroa has been repeatedly 



