1906] CURRENT LITERATURE 495 
excuse many slips, but the serious question is as to the value of such a mass of 
undigested citations. 
n any event, the translation is exceedingly welcome, and should go far 
toward stimulating a study to which American botanists pay scant attention. 
A New Zealand Manual. 
In 1864 Sir JosepH D. Hooker published the first part of his Handbook 
of the New Zealand Flora, which belonged to a uniform series of floras contem- 
plated for all the British colonies. In 1894 the late Mr. T. Krrx was engaged 
by the New Zealand government to prepare a Student’s Flora of New Zealand, 
but at his death in 1897 barely two-fifths of this task had been completed. This 
fragment has since been published by the government, but the need for a com- 
plete and convenient flora was becoming so acute that in 1900 Mr. T. F. CHEESE- 
MAN, curator of the Auckland museum, was appointed by the government to 
prepare a Manual of the New Zealand Flora, and this has now appeared.° 
The instructions to the author included one to follow the general plan of 
-Hooxer’s Handbook, and another to include only indigenous plants. However, 
in an appendix the New Zealand families are arranged in the Engler and Prantl 
sequence; a list of the naturalized plants is also given, and a very long one it is. 
There is also an alphabetical list of Maori names of plants, and a full glossary. 
A most interesting and valuable contribution, contained among the introductory 
pages, is ‘“‘A history of botanical discovery in New Zealand,” from Cook’s first 
visit in 1769 to the present year. 
As is customary, only the vascular plants are included, and the range covered 
includes not only the two main islands of the Colony of New Zealand, but also 
the outlying groups of the Kermadec Islands, the Chatham Islands, the Auckland 
and Campbell Islands, Antipodes Island, etc. Macquarie Island is also included, 
although it belongs to Tasmania, because it is more closely allied in its flora 
to the Auckland and Campbell Islands than to any other land. The descriptions 
are in almost all cases original, and have been based upon the examination of 
living or dried material, extending through thirty-five years of continuous study 
and collection of the flora. Surely no one of larger experience could have been 
selected to do this work, which gives evidence throughout of most painstaking 
The four largest families, with species numbering from 221 down to 113, are 
Compositae, Cyperaceae, Scrophulariaceae, and Gramineae; 
positae constitute one-seventh of the whole flora. The largest genus 1s Veronica, 
6 CHEESEMAN, T. F., Manual of the New Zealand Flora. 8vo. pp. xxxvi+ I199. 
Wellington: Published under the authority of the Government of New Zealand. 
1906. 
