A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the ntind which builds for aye." — Wordsworth. 



Edited 

 W. B. 

 Smith. 



34 + 

 John 



(THURSDAY, MARCIT 2, 1916. 

 THE NEW ZEALAND FLORA, 

 ustrations of the New Zealand Flora. 

 by T. F. Cheeseman, assisted by Dr. 

 Hemsley. Plates drawn by ^liss M. 

 \'o\. i., pp. 8+ 121 plates. Vol. ii., pp 

 plates 122-250. (Wellington, N.Z. : 

 Mackay, Government Printer, 1914.) 



PERHAPS no country of equal extent possesses 

 a vegetation more interesting- than does 

 New Zealand, the 1600 indig-enous vascular plants 

 of which include some three-fourths that are en- 

 demic. Few floras have received more attention 

 from a long succession of distinguished workers. 

 The history of botanical discovery in the Dominion 

 from the time of Captain Cook's first visit (1769- 

 70) to the middle of last century is fascinatingly 

 told in Hooker's introductory essay to the second 

 portion of his " Botany of the Antarctic Voyages 

 of the Erebus and Terror," retold and continued 

 with more detail half a century later in Cheese- 

 man's "Manual of the New Zealand Flora." 

 Space forbids the recapitulation here of this in- 

 ictive story; it is, however, worth while recall- 

 >!< the chief attempts that have been made to 

 publish the results achieved. The first of these 

 - an " Essai d'une flore de la Noiivelle 

 ;ande," by A. Richard, issued in 1833 as part 

 of the account of Dumont d'Urville's voyagfe in 

 the Astrolabe. This was followed by Allan Cun- 

 ningham's less satisfactory " Florte Novae Zelan- 

 diae Praecursor," issued in instalments about 1839, 

 and by the fine "Choix de Plantes de la Nouvelle- 

 ande," published by Raoul in 1846. Next 

 ie the " Flora Novae-Zelandiae " of Hooker, 

 ch forms part ii. of the results of the voyages 

 Ross (1839-43), issued under Admiralty au- 

 rity during 1852-55. 



NO. 2418, VOL. 97] 



A decade later (1864-67) Hooker published at 

 the request and under the authority of the New 

 Zealand Gover/iment his " Handbook of the New 

 Zealand Flora," a work which for thirty years 

 remained the standard authority on the subject 

 and stimulated the activities and the critical 

 acumen of a g^eneration of collectors and students. 

 One of the most active and accomplished of these, 

 the late Mr. T. Kirk, devoted much time to the 

 accumulation of material for a new flora incorpor- 

 ating- descriptions of the many novelties dis- 

 covered and characterised since Hooker's "Hand- 

 book " was issued. The services of a competent 

 local botanist being- now available. Kirk was asked 

 by the New Zealand Government in 1894 to write 

 a "Students' Flora of New Zealand." Three 

 years later, when less than half his task had been 

 overtaken, Kirk died. The portion of this work 

 actually completed was officially printed, and its 

 quality was such as to increase the reg-ret caused 

 by the author's death and to streng^en the 

 Government resolution to provide the new flora so 

 urgently required. 



The preparation of the much-desired work was 

 entrusted to Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, curator of the 

 Auckland Museum. His "Manual," eagerly 

 looked for, when published at Welling-ton in 1906, 

 received a warm welcome from all who were in- 

 terested in the vegetation of the Dominion. Except 

 perhaps in England, it was already generally ap- 

 preciated that botanists are indebted to New Zea- 

 land for some of the most weighty additions to 

 natural knowledge in the ecological field. The 

 appearance of Cheeseman 's "Manual" taught 

 systematists that the Dominion had besides at 

 least one taxonomic writer in whom are happily 

 blended those powers of observation, that balanced 

 judgment, and that capacity for taking pains so 

 essential in floristic study. 



When Cheeseman was commissioned to prepare 



B 



