xxviii FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 
their allies in Australia. A paucity of Grasses, an absence of Leguminose, an abundance of bushes 
and Ferns, and a want of annual plants, are the prevalent features in the open country, whilst the 
forests abound in Cryptogamia, and in phænogamic plants with obscure green flowers, and very 
often of obscure and little-known Natural Orders*. 
Considerably more than two hundred of the New Zealand species have either unisexual or 
polygamous flowers, or are otherwise incomplete in their reproductive organs, even when their floral 
envelopes are more or less developed. The number of Natural Orderst is large in proportion to the 
genera; being as 92 to 282, that is, about one to three: while the genera are to the species as 282 
to 730, each genus having on the average only two and a half species; whence it follows that there 
are, on the average, but eight species to each Natural Order. 
Considering these circumstances, and the additional one, that very many of the Natural Orders 
cannot be recognized by the flower alone, by fruit alone, or by habit or foliage, it may, I think, safely 
be said that the New Zealand Flora is, for its extent, much the most difficult on the globe to a 
beginner. Indeed, the mere fact that the student must know a Natural Order for every eight species 
he has to investigate, offers as direct a means of proving this by comparison as any datum could do, 
for the probable proportion of species of plants on the globe to the known Natural Orders, exceeds 
three hundred and fifty to one; in Tasmania the proportions are eleven to one, and in Great Britain 
they average fourteen to one. 
It is, therefore, not surprising that the vegetation of New Zealand should be wanting in any 
conspicuous or prevailing feature, which is the case to so great a degree that, excluding Ferns, I do 
not think any two botanists would, without investigation, characterize any part of the islands as the 
region of any particular order, genus, or species. The Conifere, when known, prove to be perhaps 
the most universally prevalent natural family ; but the majority of their species, not being social, but 
growing intermixed with other trees, give no character to the landscape. The vast number of trees, 
the paucity of herbaceous plants, and the almost total absence of annuals, are the most remarkable 
features of the Flora; for of flowering trees, including shrubs above twenty feet high, there are upwards 
of 1131, or nearly one-sixth of the Flora, besides 156 shrubs and plants with woody stems. Of the 
largest Natural Orders, so far as regards the number of species, the individuals are often so few, 
that the botanist would form a very erroneous estimate of the numerical force of such in the whole 
island from an examination of some of its parts only: thus the Orders most numerous in species are, 
Composite, 90; Cyperacee, 66; Graminee, 53; Scrophularinee, 40; Orchidee, 39; Rubiacee, 26; 
and Epacridee and Umbellifere, each 23; none of which can be said to form prevalent features in 
the landscape, though none are rare. 
In the neighbouring island of Tasmania, where the same Orders predominate to a great extent, 
the case is widely different: there the Grasses everywhere form a prominent feature; the Cyperacee, 
* My first day's collections about the Bay of Islands included Corynocarpus, Alseuosmia, Melicytus, Drimys, 
Aristotelia, Coriaria, Gunnera, Carpodetus, Griselinia, Corokia, Geniostoma, Laurelia, Hedycarya, Freycinetia, Rhi- 
pogonum, and Astelia; all belonging to small, obscure, or little-known Natural Orders, many long considered of 
dubious affinity: besides a host of obscure genera of little-known families. 
+ It is to be observed, that I have adopted as few Natural Orders as possible; fewer, I think, than I should 
have done in a work on general botany; but I was anxious to diminish as much as possible the labours of the 
beginner. Had I adopted all the Orders that have been proposed, there would be upwards of a hundred of flowering 
plants in New Zealand. 
+ In England there are not more than 85 native trees, out of a flora of upwards of 1400 species. 
