Part II. 
- The Flora of New Zealand. and its Distribution, 
Chapter I. The Botanical Subdivisions of New Zealand. 
1. General. 
So many areas throughout New Zealand are insufficiently explored, or 
altogether unknown, so far as plant-distribution is concerned, that few statements 
as to the range of any species are absolutely valid. Therefore, the classification 
‚proposed in this chapter is advanced with great hesitation and offered merely 
as a provisional attempt to deal with a subject that will be treated with much 
greater precision by some investigator in the future. In most cases, it is not 
feasible to fix definite boundaries to the various botanical districts; for not only 
is there a gradual merging of one into, another, but local climates, or edaphic 
. conditions, occur which permit the occasional presence of species, or indeed _ 
associations, not in keeping with the general florula, or vegetation. n 
x The major divisions of the region are here designated "doranical provinces”. 
These are based largely upon climatic change depending on latitude. For the 
most part, they correspond to the botanical provinces of my Government Reports, 
the sole differences being that the boundary-line between the Northern and 
Central provinces is, in its eastern part, kept somewhat further to the N., and 
that the South Island portion of the Central province is restricted to the Marl- 
borough Sound’s area and some of the country in the immediate vicinity, 
lying to the W. and to the S. Be 
' In dealing with the botanical provinces, the ground is fairly secure, for 
their basis is the stable one of gradual change in species in proceeding from 
N. to 5. But, when the question of smaller subdivisions, here called “dozamical 
districts”, comes in, the ground is much less stable, not merely because peWi. 
discoveries of species, or of distribution, may become disturbing factors, but 
because facts of various kinds — floristic, ecological and geological — have to 
be considered. Dee i Re £ 
.....000.000..2. The Botanical Provinces. ee 
The New Zealand region may be naturally divided into the six. botanical 
provinces detailed below. Possibly Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands ought to 
be included, a course already followed by OLIVER (1910). a 
