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XXIV HISTORY OF 
The foremost place among resident botanists and explorers must 
be granted to the Rev. W. Colenso, both on account of the number and 
variety of his discoveries, and the ardour with which, for a period of 
no less than sixty-five years, he continued to observe and to collect 
facts and specimens in almost all branches of natural science, always 
giving the leading place to botany. Arriving in New Zealand in 1834, 
he was induced, first by the visit of the illustrious Darwin in the 
“ Beagle” in 1835, and later by Allan Cunningham in 1838, to take 
up the study of the botany of his adopted country, forwarding his 
specimens from time to time to Sir W. J. Hooker at Kew. At first his 
collections were confined to the district between Whangarei and the 
North Cape, but he soon enlarged his field of operations. Space will 
not permit of a full account of his many journeys, which practically 
covered the whole length of the North Island, but the followmg were the 
most important. In 1841-42 he travelled on foot from Hicks Bay to 
Poverty Bay, and from thence inland through the rugged and almost 
inaccessible Urewera Country to Lake Waikaremoana, which he was 
the first European traveller to reach. He then crossed the Te Whaiti 
Mountains to Ruatahuna, from whence he proceeded to Rotorua and 
Tauranga. Striking inland again, he followed the upper Thames 
Valley to its head, and, crossing to the Waikato River, canoed a hundred 
miles down the river to its mouth. From thence he followed the 
west coast to the Kaipara Harbour, then again made for the east 
coast at Mangawai, finally reaching the Bay of Islands by way of 
Whangarei and Whangaruru. In 1843 he journeyed from Hicks 
Bay to Poverty Bay, and thence by sea to Castle Point. From that 
locality he proceeded to Ahuriri (Hawke’s Bay) and the Wairoa River, 
which he ascended to Waikaremoana, returning by way of Rotorua 
and Tauranga. In 1844 he transferred his residence from the Bay 
of Islands to Hawke’s Bay, and in the following year made his first 
expedition to the summit of the Ruahine Range, finding there a harvest 
of previously unknown alpine and subalpine plants. In 1847 he 
travelled by way of Titiokura and the Mohaka River to Taupo and 
Inland Patea, passing along the flanks of Tongariro and Ruapehu, 
and returning to Hawke’s Bay over the Ruahine Range, which he was 
the first European to cross. These journeys and many others, all 
made on foot, with a few Native companions only, and often under 
circumstances of great privation and no little danger, are evidence 
of the ardour and enthusiasm with which Mr. Colenso carried on his 
botanical explorations m the early days of the colony. Nor did his 
zeal diminish with age, for the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 
contain papers written by him describing plants collected during a 
journey made to the flanks of the Ruahine Range in his eighty-fifth 
year. In addition to numerous writings on the Maori race, on which 
he was for many years the chief authority, Mr. Colenso contributed 
no less than fifty-nine papers on botanical subjects to the Transactions 
