318 Transactions.— Botany. 
throughout, it resembles Dichelachne erinita, D. sciwrea, and other unques- 
tioned natives, in having increased largely during the last eight or ten years, 
and often exhibits a luxuriance surpassing anything to be seen in the British 
Islands, even in Ireland where its climatal advantages most nearly resemble 
those of this colony ; yet its nativity is unquestioned, and there exists not 
the slightest ground for disputing it. A third species of this genus common 
to both countries was noticed by Banks and Solander, apparently on account 
of some slight differences having led them to consider it distinct. Lemna 
minor is another common European plant which often covers pools and quiet 
places on the margins of rivers and lakes, and open water in Swamps, with a 
mantle of green, and in these islands is found from the North Cape to Otago, 
from the central lakes to the sea; yet this also was not mentioned by the 
earlier botanists ; so also Sparganium simplex, a common paludal plant in the 
north, and probably in the south also. Are these and others to be considered 
introduced on the ground that they were first mentioned by Bidwill or later 
botanists, or on the possibility that the seeds of some of them might have 
been brought in various accidental ways? 
Zostera marina is a plant the seeds of which could not possibly have been 
introduced. It is plentiful in the Bay of Islands, Thames River, Mercury 
Bay, Bay of Plenty, Cook Strait, and in fact all round the coasts where the 
requisite conditions for its growth exist ; it is frequently found floating at a 
considerable distance from the shore, yet the first positive record of its belong- 
ing to the New Zealand flora occurs in the second part of the “ Handbook,” 
which is scarcely six years old. Is it to be considered introduced on this 
ground? Yet it is far more improbable that this plant should have. escaped 
notice than the knot-grass, 
It would be easy to place the trivial value of Mr. Travers’ argument in a 
still more forcible light, but it will be sufficient to remark that taking it in 
its most plausible form it would have no value in the estimation of a botanist 
well acquainted with the history of botanical discovery, and especially of one 
possessed of a precise knowledge of the plants actually collected by the earlier 
botanists. 
In writing the above I have tacitly adopted Mr. Travers’ assumption that 
the knot-grass is not mentioned by the earlier collectors in New Zealand, but 
is this correct? I commend the following extract from Mr. Anderson’s 
remarks on the plants observed by him at Queen Charlotte Sound to the 
special attention of Mr. Travers. It will be found at page 148 of the first 
volume of “ Cook’s Third Voyage,” in the well known quarto edition of 
“Amongst the known kinds of plants met with here, are common and 
rough bindweed ; nightshade and nettles, both which grow to the size of small 
