Vili PREFACE. 
many obligations to Professor E. Hackel, of Graz, Austria, for under- 
taking a critical examination of the whole of the New Zealand grasses, 
and for furnishing me with a series of very full and complete notes, 
with permission to use the same for the purposes of this work. 
The elimination of the naturalised species from the present work, 
although absolutely necessary to keep it within the limits of a single 
volume, will not be altogether satisfactory to the student. A 
beginner cannot be expected to distinguish between the indigenous 
and introduced species, especially when it is remembered that in several 
districts the latter now constitute the larger portion of the flora, and 
that there is no part of the country, however remote, into which some 
plants of foreign origin have not penetrated. Altogether, over six 
hundred species, or nearly one-half the number of the indigenous 
flowering-plants, have succeeded in establishing themselves. I am 
not without hopes that I may be enabled to prepare a supplementary 
volume containing concise but sufficient descriptions of the foreign 
element of the flora; for this alone will remove the inconvenience 
resulting from the want of a ready means of determining all the plants 
which a student may observe in any district. In the meantime, I 
have given in the Appendix a nominal list of all well-established 
naturalised plants, with references to books in which descriptions of 
them can be found. As most of the species are of European origin, 
I would recommend the student to provide himself with a copy of 
Hooker’s ‘‘ Students’ Flora of the British Islands,” or some similar 
work, and to use it in conjunction with this publication. 
It is not to be expected that a work containing descriptions of over 
1,550 species of plants can be prepared without the occurrence of 
errors and imperfections, and for these I must ask the indulgence of 
the reader. One serious disadvantage under which I have laboured, 
and which I share in common with all colonial botanists, is the im- 
possibility of examining those European herbaria in which the types 
of so many of the published species are deposited ; and consequently 
mistakes may have been made in the identification of the species, 
especially in genera like Veronica, Gentiana, Myosotis, &c. But I trust 
that the number of such errors is not large. Their detection may be 
safely left to future workers. 
A few statistics respecting the extent and composition of the flora 
may be of interest. The total number of species described, including 
a few additions given in the Appendix, is 1,571, of which 1,415 are 
