338 Notice of Dr. Hooker’s Flora of New Zealand. 
personal experience, viz., that the estimate of the number of species 
known to botanists is a greatly exaggerated one,* and the prevalent 
ideas regarding their distribution no Tess contracte 
any more ‘plants are common to most countries than is supposed ; 
I have found 60 New Zealand Flowering plants and 9 Ferns to be Eu- 
ropean ones, bere inhabiting various intermediate countries ; and 
amongst the lower Orders we find a greatly increased proportion of 
species common e all countries: thus of Mosses alone 50 are found in 
New Zealand and Europe ;+ of Hepatice 13; of Algae 45 are also na- 
tives “ eeeee seas } of tri poe 60; and of Lichens 100. 
to Australia. The identity of many of these has ‘peated been 
collectors have greatly increased the ist. 
too aeolees idea that the tones of newly discovered, isolated, 
or little visited localities must nece arily be new, has been a fertile 
fore describing the plants from uel spots. The New Zealand Flora 
presents several instances of this; two conspicuo ous ones occur 1n the 
genus Ovalis ; one, O. Sphabitee is amongst the most widely diffused 
and variable plants j in the world; of its varieties no less than seven OF 
eight species have been made, iho ost of them supposed to be peculiar to 
New Zealand ; not only is O. corniculata hence excluded from the 
flora, but, ia the deieripiall of these its varieties, no allusion is made 
to that plant.§ In the case of the other species the error is more eX- 
* Se, to the se sa of compilers, 100,000 is ae fee received 
own plants: from a a icity of data I can e to no other con 
er th i 
r 
and varieties, all of which are catalogued as species in the ordinary works © 
ence whence such estimates are compiled. 
oO ritai i : 
tries, Cockburn Island, in lat. 64° 12’ S. and long. 64° 49’ W., nea’ - 
sedition. I thereon collected nineteen plants, of which three-fourths are natives 0° 
pendix to Flinders’s Voyage, vol. ii, 
at ive oe very confidently in the ay dy of this mpi that bee of ae 
cies s are all referable to on 
probeliy oot me , approbation of the local epee es will an "40 et ok 
ory. with w nich some states retain their characters under varied cae 
¥ aiue such facts very highly, and attach great weight to them, M 
. oe Soe Zealand I should perhaps have withheld so strong 0. a 
—— the sub ject ; h not th me ta varies much m aes: 
pst — rts of the world; and admitting, as eve — par varieties 
retain } or less constancy for certal 4 
some other evidence is necessary to shake the opinion of the botanist who grounds: 
his views on an reviniagtlon OF ag oem pee of the globe. 
ised 
