xiv FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 
many hundred specimens of the plant, gathered in all parts of the south temperate hemisphere, and 
have found, after a most laborious comparison, that I could not define its characters with sufficient 
comprehensiveness from a study of its New Zealand phases alone, nor understand the latter without 
examining those of Australia, South Africa, and South America. The resident may find two varie- 
ties of this and of many other plants, retaining their distinctive characters within his own range of ob- 
servation (for that varieties often do so, and for a very uncertain period, both when wild and also in 
gardens, is notorious), and he may perhaps have to travel far beyond his own island to find the link 
I have found, in the chain of forms that unites the most dissimilar states of Lomaria procera; but he 
can no more argue thence for the specific difference of these, than he can for a specific difference be- 
tween the aboriginal of New Zealand and himself, because he may not find intermediate forms of his 
race on the spot. We do not know why varieties should in many cases thus retain their indivi- 
duality over great areas, and lose them in others; but the fact that they do so proves that no deduc- 
tions drawn from local observations on widely distributed plants can be considered conclusive. To 
the amateur these questions are perhaps of very trifling importance, but they are of great moment to 
the naturalist who regards accurately-defined floras as the means for investigating the great pheno- 
mena of vegetation; he has to seek truth amid errors of observation and judgment, and the resulting 
chaos of synonymy which has been accumulated by thoughtless aspirants to the questionable honour 
of being the first to name a species*. 
There are many causes which render it extremely difficult to determine the limits of species, and 
in some genera the obstacles appear to inerease, the more the materials for studying them multiply, 
and the more we follow our analysis of them into detail; hence the botanist is often led on to an 
indefinite multiplication of species (with increased difficulty of determining those already established), 
or to a reduction of all to a few, or to one variable species. My own impression is, that the progress 
of botany points to the conclusion that in many genera we must ultimately adopt much larger views 
of the variation of species than heretofore, and that the number of supposed kinds of plants is (as I 
shall indicate elsewhere) greatly over-estimated ; if it be not so, we must either admit that species are 
not definable, or that there are hidden characters throughout all classes of the vegetable kingdom, of 
which the botanist has no cognizance, and towards the acquirement of which, if they are ever to be 
revealed, all efforts in the direction in which we have been advancing appear to be vain. Could sys- 
tematists as a body be accused of carrying out their investigations in an unphilosophical manner or 
spirit, or without due attention to all the modes of testing the validity of characters, afforded by the 
study of living and dried plants, by direct observation, and. by experiment, there might be hopes of 
such a revelation; but such hopes are inconsistent with the great advances that have been made in 
systematic botany, which, having all tended to a more perfect knowledge of the affinities of plants, we 
are assured have been the effect of progress in the right direction. 
Of the genera to which I here allude as variable, there are many in New Zealandt; some of 
* The time however is happily past when it was considered an honour to be the namer of a plant; the bo- 
tanist who has the true interests of science at heart, not only feels that the thrusting of an uncalled-for synonym into 
the nomenclature of science is an exposure of his own ignorance and deserves censure, but that a wider range 
of knowledge and a greater depth of study are required, to prove those dissimilar forms to be identical, which any 
superficial observer can separate by words and a name. 
+ M. Bory de St. Vincent has observed (Voyage dans les Quatre principales Iles des Mers d'Afrique) with 
reference to insular floras, that their species are generally variable, an hypothesis scarcely compatible with the fact 
that the proportion of species to genera in islands is always small, because the proportion of imported plants, which 
is considerable in an island, is made up of species of different genera, having no affinity with one another, and 
