8 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
Colenso’s botanical writings are voluminous, and consist chiefly 
of papers published in the “ Transactions of the New Zealand Insti- 
tute,’ dealing with new species of plants, or what he considered to 
be new. Many New Zealand plants were named in his honour, 
including the genus Colensoa. 
Sir Joseph Hooker was botanist to that famous Antarctic Expe- 
dition which left England in 1839 under the command of Sir James 
Ross. So far as the Dominion is concerned, Hooker visited the 
Lord Auckland and Campbell Islands, and also the Bay of Islands, 
where he and Colenso met. He published his splendid results in 
several magnificent volumes, as a part of the botany of the Antarctic 
voyage, with lifelike coloured plates, under the titles “ Flora Novae- 
Zelandiae ’ and “ Flora Antarctica.” 
Hooker’s work as a field naturalist in the subantarctic islands 
was most thorough. Only one who has been to that place of 
wind and rain, and has attempted to make a botanical collection, 
can appreciate the completeness of his collections, and marvel at 
the immense amount of work accomplished in so brief a time. 
But Hooker’s labours on the New Zealand flora do not end here. 
By an arrangement with the New Zealand Government he wrote 
the classical “‘ Handbook of the New Zealand Flora,” published 
in 1864-67, which deals not only with the seed-plants, but with 
the ferns, mosses, liverworts, fungi, and seaweeds. ‘This was no 
mere reproduction of his former works, for many New Zealand 
collectors, as detailed in this chapter, had been hard at work, and 
a vast quantity of fresh material awaited examination. Indeed, 
the task was of no small magnitude, and when the remarkable 
accuracy of the descriptions is considered it is hard to believe the 
fact that they were drawn up from dried plants alone. Assuredly, 
well might Darwin exclaim, “ Oh, my heavens! to get up at second 
hand a New Zealand flora—that is work!” How original the 
treatment was is shown by the fact that sixteen endemic genera 
and half the species had no botanical names until Hooker described 
them. 
The great botanist died in 1911. He had seen almost the 
beginning of New Zealand botany. He himself had laid truly and 
well an enduring foundation; during more than seventy years he 
had watched the building rise, until at the time of his lamented 
death he saw it well advanced, and its labourers men either 
