812 Transactions.— Botany. 
of her manifold beautiful treasures in the natural orders of Musci, Hepatice, 
Lichenes, and Fungi, with which our New Zealand forests everywhere teem, 
not a few of which are still unknown to science ; although a large number 
of them have already been published by Dr. Hooker in the “ Flora Novæ 
Zealandiæ,” and in the later work above-mentioned, and some others since 
in several of the later volumes of the ** Transactions of the New Zealand 
Institute." 
It has ever been a pleasing thought with me to consider what great, 
what new, what expansive ever-growing delight awaits the future generation 
of zealous nature-loving New Zealand naturalists in this particular branch 
of natural science. When the Mosses, the Liverworts, the Lichens, the 
Fungi, and the Algs (including the invisible Desmides) of New Zealand 
shall have been, in the course of future years, discovered and drawn and 
accurately described,—much as similar botanical research and work has 
been done in our fatherland,—in the Hepatice of Sir W. Hooker (“ British 
Jungermannie,” and in ** Musci Exotici "), and of Mitten ; the Bryologia 
of Wilson ; the Lichens of Babington, Lauder-Lindsay, and Leighton; the 
Fungi of Berkeley, Greville, and Cooke; the Marine Alge of Professor 
Harvey ; the Fresh-water Alge of Hassall; and the Desmider of Ralfs* ;— 
when this is all accomplished, as it ought to be under the increasing light of 
science (and so done it will be), then the generation of that day, and sub- 
sequent ones, will have much, very much, to be thankful for and to admire. 
On the present occasion, however, I shall strictly confine my few 
remarks to some of the ferns of those woods, which, on various visits of 
mine thither, have caught and rivetted my attention. 
In one spot in particular, deeply secluded in the quiet recesses of the 
grand old forest,—(a spot very dear to me! one which I have almost 
invariably visited several times, and every time with increasing delight, on 
each of my journeys inland),—I have repeatedly noticed and pleasingly 
contemplated a large number of species of ferns ; more than I had ever seen 
growing together in all my wanderings in New Zealand; and all, too, 
flourishing luxuriantly. Within this circumscribed area of, say, one-eighth 
of a mile each way, or even less, I have found 48 species of ferns, and more,+ 
belonging to 15 genera; or nearly half of the number given in the ** Hand- 
book" as being inhabitants of New Zealand proper. This, as I take it, is 
* I am well aware of what ws «€ so largely and efficiently done in all those natural 
orders by many eminent conti ryptogamists, as Schimper, C. Müeller, Hedwig, and 
Schweegrichen, Gottsche, cena and Nees, Acharius, Fee, and Nylander, Fries, Corda, 
and Tulasne, Agardh, and Kutzing, and others ; but I have purposely confined my remarks 
to British cryptogamic botanists. 
t Vide infra, including the lately-discovered new species. 
