622 



NATURE 



[Oct. 25, 1888 



FLORA OF THE KERMADEC ISLANDS. 



UPWARDS of thirty years ago Sir Joseph Hooker 

 published an account of the botany of Raoul 

 or Sunday Island, one of the Kermadec Group (Journal 

 of the Linnean Society, i. pp. 125-29), founded upon 

 a small collection made by McGillivray and Milne, 

 naturalists attached to H.M.S. Herald. This collection 

 consisted of forty-two species, of which twenty were 

 flowering plants, and the rest ferns and lycopods : and 

 the most interesting circumstance connected with it was 

 "the identity of most of the flowering plants, and all but 

 one of the ferns, with those of New Zealand." 



In 1885, Mr. J. T. Arundel presented to the Kew 

 Herbarium a collection of fourteen species from Meyer, 

 a small rocky islet about a mile and a half north of 

 Sunday Island. Poor as it was, it contained half-a-dozen 

 plants not previously known from the group, though they 

 are all included in the collection referred to below. 



Since then, no further light has been thrown on this 

 insular flora, until the quite recent appearance (Transac- 

 tions of the New Zealand Institute, xx. pp. 1 51-81) of a 

 paper by Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, Curator of the, Auck- 

 land Museum, New Zealand, a copy of which was kindly 

 forwarded to the writer. Mr. Cheeseman was per- 

 mitted, through the kind offices of Mr. Percy Smith, the 

 Assistant Surveyor-General of New Zealand, to accompany 

 the expedition despatched last year for the purpose of 

 formally annexing the group to the colony of New Zealand. 

 If Mr. Cheeseman has not succeeded in exhausting the 

 botany of the Kermadec Islands, which, of course, is 

 hardly probable, the undiscovered species cannot ma- 

 terially affect the question of the origin of the vegetation. 

 But before giving the results of his investigations, it will 

 be useful to indicate the position and extent of the 

 islands. 



There are four islands lying at great distances apart, 

 between 29 10' and 31° 30' S. lat., and stretching in a south- 

 west and a north-east direction, like New Zealand itself, 

 the nearest point of which is between 500 and 600 miles 

 distant. Raoul or Sunday Island is the largest and the 

 farthest from New Zealand, being twenty miles in cir- 

 cumference, and about 640 miles from Auckland, and a 

 little less than that distance from Tonga. Macaulay, the 

 next in size, is sixty-eight miles to the south-west of 

 Sunday Island ; and Curtis and L'Esperance, still farther 

 to the south-west, are little more than rocks. The 

 expedition failed to land on the last-named island, and 

 the visit to Curtis Island was of very brief duration, 

 hence the botany relates almost exclusively to Sunday 

 and Macaulay Islands. 



The group is of volcanic origin, and the greatest 

 elevation in Sunday Island is 1720 feet, while Macaulay 

 nowhere reaches quite half that height. 



Altogether Mr. Cheeseman collected 115 indigenous 

 vascular plants, eighty-four being phanerogams and 

 thirty-one cryptogams, and only five of them were 

 regarded as endemic. In addition to the foregoing, 

 twenty-six species of naturalized plants, chiefly European 

 weeds, were observed or collected. 



Of the 115 indigenous species, no fewer than eighty-five 

 are also found in New Zealand, though only fourteen of 

 these are absolutely confined to the two localities. Forty- 

 four species are found in Norfolk Island, forty of which 

 also occur in New Zealand, and only two are apparently 

 confined to Norfolk Island and the Kermadecs. Forty 

 species extend to Lord Howe's Island, but thirty-four of 

 these are also in New Zealand, and none of the peculiar 

 plants of Lord Howe's Island reach the Kermadecs. 

 Seventy-six of the species are common to Australia, sixty- 

 three of them being also in New Zealand, and none of 

 them otherwise peculiar to Australia. Lastly, forty-seven 

 are found in Polynesia, and thirty-one of these also occur 

 in New Zealand. 



The foregoing data, as Mr. Cheeseman observes, point 

 unmistakably to New Zealand as the source of thegreater 

 part of the flora of the Kermadec Islands. How the 

 plants reached these islands is an interesting question. 

 Mr. Cheeseman is prepared to admit a former north- 

 western extension of New Zealand ; but, after a careful 

 examination of the evidence, he arrives at the conclusion 

 that the Kermadec Islands have always been isolated, or, 

 at least, have not formed part of any other land since the 

 Secondary period. Spores of the ferns may have been 

 conveyed by winds ; and ocean currents and birds, it may 

 well be conceived, have operated in stocking the islands 

 with flowering plants. Most of the birds are New 

 Zealand species, and the presence of Kauri logs, of 

 different dates and brands, stranded on various parts 

 of the beach, is convincing evidence of the direction 

 of ocean currents. Moreover, the composition of the 

 flora strongly supports this theory. 



Sunday Island is the only one of the group on which 

 there is anything approaching arboreous vegetation, and 

 this, with the exception of a small area of the crater, is 

 clothed with forest from the sea-shore to the tops of the 

 highest peaks. The prevailing tree is Metrosideros 

 polyinorpha, one of the most characteristic trees of 

 Polynesia, especially of the smaller islands, reaching the 

 Sandwich, Marquesas, and Pitcairn Islands ; but this 

 particular species does not occur in New Zealand nor in 

 Australia. 



Next to the Metrosideros in abundance and con- 

 spicuousness is a palm, which Mr. Cheeseman thinks 

 may be identical with the Norfolk Island Rhopalostylis 

 Baneri (Areca Baneri). In some places this grows 

 gregariously, forming large groves. 



Ferns are everywhere abundant, varied, and luxuriant ; 

 and the endemic tree-fern, Cyathea Milnei, is very plenti- 

 ful, and handsome withal, rising to a height of 50 or 

 60 feet. Prominent among the New Zealand trees are 

 Corynocarpus Icevigatus, Myoporiun latum, Melicope 

 ternata, Melicytus ramiflorus, and Panax arboreum. 

 Cordyline terminate, the widely-spread Polynesian " Ti," 

 and Pisonia Brunoniana, Pittosporum crassifolium, 

 Coprosma acutifolia, and C. petiolata, natives of New 

 Zealand, are other elements deserving of notice. 



The herbaceous vegetation includes no plants with 

 very conspicuous flowers, but there are two orchids — 

 namely, Acianthus Sinclairii, a native of New Zealand, 

 and Microtis porrifolia, which also inhabits both New 

 Zealand and Australia. 



Macaulay Island was entirely covered with a beautiful 

 sward of natural grass, supposed to be composed of a 

 species of Poa and an Agrostis, but in the absence of 

 flowers they were indeterminable. 



Students of botanical geography will find much more 

 that is interesting in Mr. Cheeseman's valuable paper, 

 from which I have extracted the principal facts. 



W. BOTTING HEMSLEY. 



DIGIT! MINIMI DECESSUS. 

 [Sent by a Correspondent.} 

 'THE following lines appeared in the Guy's Hospital 

 -*- Gazette of October 13. The correspondent who sends 

 them to us suggests that they may fitly find a place in 

 Nature, d propos of the controversy on " Prophetic 

 Germs." 



" Man is losing his little toe, .... and can do without it." 

 — Mr. Clement Lucas, in his opening lecture. 



If thou must go, thou feeble, foolish digit, 



Fain would" I speed thy slow, degenerate way ! 



I daily feel a disagreeable fidget 

 Whenever I've occasion to display 



Thy doubtful outline, and thy form chaotic 



(Born of a taste in boots, perhaps erotic). 



