38S 



NATURE 



[August 2 2, 1889 



THE FOREST FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 



The Forest Flora of New Zealand. By T. Kirk, F.G.S., 

 late Chief Conservator of State Forests to the Govern- 

 ment of New Zealand, &c. Folio, 345 pages and 160 

 plates. (Wellington : By authority ; George Didsbury, 

 Government Printer, 1889.) 



MR. EDWARD BARTLEY states 1 that only four 

 kinds of New Zealand timber are used in Auck- 

 land for building purposes, and that these are : kauri 

 {Datnmara australis), rimu {Dacrydium cupressi7iw]i), 

 totara (Podocarpus totara), and kahikatea {Podocarpus 

 dacrydioides) ; but Mr. Kirk's "Forest Flora "goes far 

 beyond the timber-yielding element of the New Zealand 

 forests. It illustrates and describes nearly the whole of 

 the shrubby and arboreous plants of New Zealand, and 

 gives very full particulars of their dimensions, qualities, 

 uses, distribution, and propagation. It is by no means a 

 mere compilation ; and, although the author acknowledges 

 various sources of information, a slight examination of 

 the work is sufficient to convince us that it is very largely 

 based upon personal observation, and that the details are 

 elaborated with great care. 



Altogether the flora of New Zealand contains rather 

 less than a thousand species of flowering plants, and of 

 these 115 are illustrated in the present work ; some of the 

 more important and specially interesting species by 

 several plates. The tree ferns, which form so conspicu- 

 ous a feature in the vegetation of the country, are not 

 included, and some shi-ubby plants are omitted whose 

 claims to notice are at least equally as strong as some of 

 those admitted ; but this is explained by the author's 

 desire to do the work thoroughly as far as he went. For 

 this reason, several of the small shrubby Coniferae are 

 figured, and a considerable number of plates are devoted 

 to the illustration of the heterophyllous members of 

 various natural orders. 



Heterophylly is not a pecuHar feature of insular floras, 

 though it is perhaps nowhere more conspicuously de- 

 veloped than it is in New Zealand and Rodriguez." 

 Many of the New Zealand Conifera;, the most valuable 

 of the timber-trees, exhibit this peculiarity in a high 

 degree, insomuch that different parts of the same tree 

 have been referred to different species and even to. 

 different genera. Thus different parts of Dacrydiiim 

 Colensoi might represent a juniper and a cypress, while 

 in D. Kirkii there is a still more remarkable dimorphism. 

 In explanation of Plate 97, Mr. Kirk writes : — 



" As in the preceding species (Z>. Colensoi), the foliage 

 is of two kinds, but the difference is of a still more strik- 

 ing character. The lower branches are spreading, the 

 upper ascending or erect, the ultimate branchleis forming 

 fan-shaped masses. The lower branches, sometimes to 

 the height of 40 feet, are clothed with long narrow flat 

 leaves ; the upper branches are clothed with small scale- 

 like, closely appressed leaves ; so that the lower part of 

 the tree resembles a silver-fir, while the upper part puts 

 on the appearance of a cypress." 



Figures are given of the dimorphic foliage of these 

 conifers, and the confusion in nomenclature which has 



I "The Building Timbers of New Zealand," Transactions and Proceedings 

 ■)f the New Zealand Institute, xviii. p. 37. 



^ For particulars of the latter, see Dr. Bayley Balfour's account of the 

 botany of the island in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 

 cf London, vol. clxviii., 1879. 



arisen in consequence of one kind only having often been 

 taken by collectors is unravelled. It should be added 

 that it is only the cypress-like branches that bear flowers 

 and fruit. 



In these New Zealand Coniferae the foliage is dimorphic, 

 but in several plants belonging to other natural orders it 

 is polymorphic. Noteworthy among these are several 

 members of the Araliacese, also Rubus ausiralis and 

 Hoheria populnea, of the order Malvaceae. Mr. Kirk has 

 very fully illustrated some of these remarkable plants, 

 devoting five plates to the last-named, and as many to 

 Pseudopanax crassifoliuin (Araliaces), a plant not un- 

 known in cultivation in this country. The earliest leaves 

 following the cotyledons of this Panax are small, narrow^ 

 and sharp-pointed, with entire margins ; " but the leaves 

 next produced are very different : they are distinctly 

 stalked, i to 2 inches in length, rhomboid or elongate 

 rhomboid in shape, and sharply toothed or deeply lobed, 

 bearing some resemblance to those of the common haw- 

 thorn. Succeeding leaves are longer and of uniform 

 width, until they sometimes attain the length of 3 feet 

 6 inches, while they scarcely exceed half an inch in width 

 and are invariably deflexed. In this stage the leaves are 

 thick and leathery in texture and acute at the apex, with 

 distant sharp marginal teeth.'' This is the form in culti- 

 vation in this country, sometimes called the fish-bone 

 tree, which Sir Joseph Hooker VL'a.rsx^d, Panax longissimum, 

 as it had retained its peculiar character unchanged for 

 fifteen years ; though subsequent investigation proved that 

 it was no other than P. crassifolium. In this stage of 

 development the stem is invariably unbranched, and rises 

 to a height of 20 feet ; and, as it often retains its leaves 

 almost to the base, it presents a very remarkable appear- 

 ance. Following these long, narrow, undivided leaves, 

 come others composed of three to five separate leaflets, 

 and borne on petioles from i to 5 inches in length. The 

 leaflets are less stiff than the long leaves, narrower, and 

 having sharply-toothed margins. These are succeeded 

 by similar leaves on longer petioles, having broader 

 leaflets, thicker in texture, with coarser, more distant 

 teeth. Flowers are sometimes produced at this stage, but 

 not unless the stem has given off lateral branches. In 

 the usual flowering stage the leaves have again become 

 simple, and they gradually become thicker, the toothing 

 almost wholly disappears, and they are from 4 to 6 inches 

 in length, and borne on short stout petioles. To add to 

 the perplexities of the plant, the male and female flowers 

 are borne on different individuals. It is not surprising, 

 therefore, that botanists working with herbarium speci- 

 mens only have failed to limit or define the species cor- 

 rectly. As already stated, many other New Zealand 

 plants are remarkable for the great variability of their 

 leaves at different stages of development, and the kind ot 

 variation is as diverse as the extent of it. 



There are so many other interesting subjects in Mr. 

 Kirk's book that one is at a loss which to select for 

 notice. Specially noteworthy is the presence in New 

 Zealand of three species of Fuchsia, a genus otherwise 

 restricted to America ; and remarkable among these is 

 F. excorticata, which sometimes attains a height of 45 

 feet, with a gnarled trunk up to 3 feet in diameter. The 

 Central American F. arborescens is the only species that 

 equals or approaches it in dimensions. F. excorticata has 



