540 Proceedings. 
so that I am not in a position even to form an opinion on several papers. 
Moreover, amongst the titles of those papers, simply taken as read, are one 
or two which doubtless belong to the most valuable portion of the year's 
work. I refer more particularly to those on Fossil Brachiopoda, and on 
the Fossil Botany of New Zealand, by the Director of the Geologieal Survey 
Department ; for these and other reasons Ishall request your permission to 
depart from the usual course, and to occupy a portion of the evening with a 
few remarks on a single subject—the connection between the Floras of 
New Zealand and Australia. 
On the Relationship between the Floras of New Zealand and Australia. 
The vast difference between the area of these two countries necessarily 
involves a great disproportion between the number of species in their 
respective floras, so that no great amount of surprise is experienced on 
finding the attention at first arrested by the series of strong contrasts which 
they present rather than by prominent proofs of affinity. Nearly three- 
fourths of the Australian forest consists of Eucalypti, of which there are 
fully 140 species, comprising the loftiest trees in the world, but the genus 
is not even represented in New Zealand. Again, 600 species of Proteaceous 
plants, Banksia, Grevillea, Hakea, Isopogon, Persoonia etc., impart a pecu- 
liar character to the scenery of many Australian districts, but only two 
species of the order are known in New Zealand. Australia possesses nearly 
1,000 species of Leguminosse, which contribute largely to the physiognomical 
character of its landscapes, or add to its floral beauty. New Zealand has 
only some thirteen species, none of which are important. On the other 
hand, the characteristic genera of the New Zealand flora are either absent 
or but sparingly represented in Australia, so that they do not form pro- 
minent features in its flora. The extensive forests of Nesodaphne, Fagus, 
and Podocarpus, so characteristic of this colony, are rarely met with in 
Australia, and none of the species are identical. Coprosma, which forms so 
large a portion of the undergrowth throughout the colony, and comprises 
some twenty-five species, is but sparingly represented in Australia, where 
the genus is limited to five species, its place there being partly occupied by 
Opercularia, Dacrydium, which is more highly developed in New Zealand 
than in any other country, and ranges from the sea-level to the extreme 
limit of ligneous vegetation, is restricted to a single species in Australia, the 
famous Huon pine of Tasmania. Celmisia, a remarkable genus of Asters 
comprising some thirty species, distributed from the North Cape to the 
Bluff, and ascending from the sea-level to the highest limits of vegetable 
growth, is represented in Australia by a single species common to both 
countries, Metrosideros, which, in one form or other, is an important factor 
in all forest vegetation, is limited to a single species of no great importance 
in Australia, 
