6 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
H.M.S. “ Buffalo,” presumably to assist in procuring spars for main- 
topmasts. This duty performed, Richard Cunningham left the ship 
at Whangaroa, remaining alone, solely in the interests of science, 
according to his biographer, “on the shores of a harbour densely 
inhabited by savages, who had but a few years before massacred 
the crew of the ship ‘ Boyd,’ and more recently had seized upon 
the houses and property of the Wesleyan missionaries, who, after 
much fatigue, privation, and insult, had effected a settlement among 
them.’’ But, as luck would have it, the Maoris remembered his. 
brother Allan, with whom they had been on most friendly terms, 
and so they welcomed the venturous botanist, and assisted him to 
the utmost of their power. 
The two Cunninghams found many “new” plants—z.e., such 
as had not been described in any publication. These, together with 
a description of the other known New Zealand plants, were published 
by Allan Cunningham in his “ Florae Insularum Novae Zelandiae 
Praecursor; or, A Specimen of the Botany of the Islands of New 
Zealand ”’—an important work containing valuable details as to the 
actual stations of the plants, indispensable information so frequently 
not given by many authors. 
The visit of the French to Akaroa in 1840, and the settlement 
in that town and its vicinity of a number of colonists of that great 
nation, are matters of general history. Less well known is the fact 
that accompanying the expedition was an enthusiastic botanist, 
Raoul by name, the surgeon of the corvette “ L’Allier.” He col- 
lected most thoroughly the plants of Banks Peninsula, and also 
those of the Bay of Islands. His services to New Zealand science 
have a fitting monument in the name of that genus of most interest- 
ing plants, Raoulia (figs. 53, 54), bestowed on them in his honour by 
Sir Joseph Hooker. MRaoul’s results were published in a splendid 
work, written by himself, and illustrated with fine plates, entitled 
“ Choix de Plantes de la Nouvelle Zélande.” One of the species, 
Pittosporum obcordatum, a curious small tree, discovered by Raoul 
in the neighbourhood of Akaroa, has not been found there since his 
visit, but some fourteen years ago a few trees were discovered near 
Kaitaia, in northern Auckland (fig. 96). Most likely the species 
has long been exterminated on Banks Peninsula, where probably 
it was not common, while most of the Kaitaia trees have been cut 
down, so that possibly the example figured in this book is the sole 
survivor ; if so, it must be the rarest wild plant in the world! 
