PLATE 39.—ACHINA NOVA-ZELANDLAE. 
Famity ROSACE.. | [Genus ACAINA, Linn. 
Acena nove-zelandie, 7. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. ii (1871), 177; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. 
Fl. 131. 
The first mention of the name of Acana nove-zelandie that I am acquainted 
with is in Dr. Lauder Lindsay’s “‘ Contributions to New Zealand Botany,” published 
in i868, where (pp. 57, 58) he refers to a plant then largely cultivated in England 
under that name, possessing both red-flowered and green-flowered varieties, and 
which he states “is probably referable to A. Sanguwisorbe.” Dr. Lindsay gives 
no description, and his remarks are not in themselves sufficiently precise to warrant 
the identification of his plant with that now known to New Zealand botanists ; but 
two years later Mr. T. Kirk sent specimens collected on the Auckland Isthmus to 
Sir J. D. Hooker, who informed him that they corresponded with a plant known 
in English gardens under the name of A. nove-zelandia. Kirk accordingly 
published the species under that designation in 1870. Attention once being drawn 
to the plant, it was soon found to be widely distributed, and it is now known to 
extend through both the North and the South Islands, although mainly in lowland 
stations. It also crosses Foveaux Strait into Stewart Island, where Dr. Cockayne 
reports it as “‘ common.” 
As a species dA. nove-zelandie is very closely allied to the common 
A, Sanguisorbe, from which it principally differs in its greater size and coarser habit 
of growth, much larger heads with longer purplish-red spines, and in the longer 
and narrower achene. Individually these are differences of small moment, but 
collectively I think they are sufficient to keep the plants apart. In Bitter’s 
recent revision of the genus (“Bibliotheca Botanica,” heft 74) it is, however, 
treated as a subspecies of A. Sanguisorbe. 
The geographical distribution of Ace@na is peculiar. In the “ Naturlichen 
Pflanzenfamilien ” the number of species is estimated at forty. Of these, only three 
are found in the Northern Hemisphere—one in California, another in Mexico, and 
the third in the Sandwich Islands. The chief home of the genus is in temperate 
and antarctic South America, but there are seven or eight species in New Zealand 
and Australia (or more according to some authors), some of them also occurring in 
the Subantarctic Islands. There is also one isolated species in South Africa. 
PLATE 39. Acena nove-zelandia, drawn from specimens collected in the vicmity of Auckland. 
Figs. 1 and 2, flowers; 3, plumose stigma; 4, tip of calycine bristles or spines; 5, section of flower ; 
6 and 7, front and back view of anthers; 8, section of ovary ; 9, ripe fruit, enclosed in the persistent 
calyx, the bristles or spines of which are greatly elongated ; 10, seed ; 11, embryo. 
