312 Transactions. — Botany. 



of her raanifold beantiful treasures in the natural orders of Mitsci, Hepatic®, 

 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 Novas 

 Zealandiae," 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 Algae (including the invisible Desmideae) 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 Hepaticas of Sir W. Hooker (" British 

 Jungermannias," 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 Algae of Professor 

 Harvey ; the Fresh-water Algae of Hassall ; and the Desmideae of Balfs * ; — 

 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, I 

 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 has been so largely and efficiently clone in all those natural 

 orders by many eminent continental cryptogamists, as Schimper, C. Mueller, Hedwig, and 

 Schwcegrichen, Gottsche, Lindenberg, 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. 



