250 Essays. 
shrub, save Coriaria ruscifolia; and that many of them are sea-side and 
water plants, identical with those found in Great Britain. 
16. Before, however, any comparison is attempted between the botany 
of New Zealand (North Island) and that of other lands, it will be advan- 
tageous further to consider such genera and species peculiar to the island— 
or to the New Zealand group—as are real and well developed, and which, 
united, form the characteristic New Zealand botany.. Not but that a genus 
may be (and often is) quite as well developed by a single species as by a 
number—witness that unique New Zealand plant Phylloglossum drum- 
‘mondii, which single species, at present, not only constitutes a genus, 
but which, by eminent continental botanists, had very nearly been 
made the type of a new natural order! A genus, although not endemic, 
may properly enough be said to be “ well-developed” in New Zealand, 
if better species are found, or if more abundantly met with, here than in 
other countries ; if, in fact, New Zealand clearly seems to be its centre, 
its home. Several of our New Zealand genera were created by her 
first botanical visitors, Banks and Solander, and by Forster aided by 
Sparrman*; the younger Linneus, De Candolle, and R. Brown also 
made afew. A. Cunningham increased the number considerably from the 
Bay of Islands plants; and more recently, Dr. Hooker has both confirmed 
js G. Forster, however, in his Voyage round the World (Vol. I. p. 67, 
4to. ed.), speaking of his father and himself, while collecting specimens at the Cape, on 
their voyage out with Captain Cook, says, —“ Our abundan t gave us the greatest 
3 were fortunate enough to meet with a man of science, Dr. Sparr- 
man, at this place, who, after studying under the father of botany, the great Sir Charles 
Linne, had made a voyage to China and another to the Cape in pursuit of knowledge. 
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much they (we?) were indebted to Dr. Sparrman, who also did so much at the Cape for 
the advancement of natural science. His memory has been justly commemorated by 
Thunberg, in the South African genus Sparrmannia—a genus very closely allied to the 
New Zealand Entelea. 
