APP ie. 
I. SYNOPTICAL KEY TO THE ORDERS. 
Tue classification adopted in this work is that followed by 
Hooker and Bentham in their well-known ‘‘ Genera Plantarum,” 
published between the years 1862 and 1883. It is also the arrange- 
ment adopted in the ‘‘ Flora of New Zealand,” the ‘‘ Handbook,” 
in Bentham’s ‘Flora Australiensis,’ and in the whole of the 
series of colonial Floras prepared under the more or less active 
guidance of the authorities at Kew. Its principal defect is in the 
sequence of the orders of Dicotyledons, which is made to depend 
entirely on the characters afforded by the perianth; the poly- 
petalous orders being followed by the gamopetalous, and these in 
their turn by the various orders in which the floral envelopes are 
more or less reduced or altogether wanting. But this last group, 
known as the Monochliumyde@, or Incomplete, consists largely of 
orders presenting well-marked affinities with others im the Poly- 
petalous or Gamopetalous divisions. Hence by recent authors, and 
notably by Engler in ‘‘ Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien,”” the 
Monochlamydeous division has been entirely abandoned, the orders 
composing it being relegated in part to the Polypetale and in part 
to the Gamopetale. As Engler’s classification is now largely used, 
I have appended to the following synopsis a sketch showing how 
the orders of New Zealand plants are arranged under it. 
Supxincpom I. PHANEROGAMIA. 
Plants bearing true flowers—that is, having stamens and ovules, 
the latter after fertilisation developing into seeds containing an 
embryo. 
Cuass I. DICOTYLEDONS. 
Stem consisting of a pith in the centre, of bark on the outside, 
and of interposed woody tissue; when perennial increasing in 
diameter annually by the addition of a new layer of wood to the 
outside of the old wood, and of a new layer of bark to the inside 
of the old bark. Leaves usually with reticulated veins. Parts. 
of the flower generally in fours or fives or eights. mbryo usually 
with two opposite cotyledons, rarely with several in a whorl. 
Suscuass I. ANGIOSPERMOUS DICOTYLEDONS. 
Ovules enclosed in an ovary, which is always provided with a 
stigma. Pollen not directly applied to the ovules, but falling upon 
the stigma, and there emitting pollen-tubes which pass through the 
tissue of the stigma and so reach the cavity of the ovary and the 
ovules. 
