f (ants of Kew Zealand. 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION, 



" Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 

 I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome, 

 And when I am stretched beneath the pines. 

 Where the evening star so holy shines, 

 I langh at the lore and the pride of Man, 

 At the sophist schools and learned clan. 

 For what are they all, in their high conceit, 

 When Man in the bush with God may meet ? ' ' 



R. W. Emerson. 



New Zealand is almost in the centre of the greatest water- 

 surface of the globe. It is indeed the Land's End of the 

 world ; and as such affords to the geologist, biologist, and 

 ethnologist, material of the highest interest. But not to the 

 scientist alone is it full of fascination. Any lover of Nature 

 will find here an inexhaustible store-house for his wonder and 

 admiration. Life everywhere is infinite in its variety and 

 unfailing in its resourcefulness. In New Zealand it has 

 developed many plants and animals unknown in any other 

 part of the world. Indeed, two-thirds of the indigenous 

 species of flowering" plants are not to be met with elsewhere. 

 This is a much higher percentage of local forms than can be 

 found in any other islands of approximately the same extent. 

 This unparalleled proportion of endemic species is due, partly, 

 perhaps, to the long isolation of the islands, partly to the great 



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