318 Transactions. — Botany. 



tlironghout, it resembles Dichelachne crinita, D. sciurea, 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 Sjyargaydum simplex, a common paludal plant in the 

 north, and probably in the south also. Are these and otbers 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 w^hich could not possibly have been 

 introduced. It is plentiful in the Bay of Islands, Thames Biver, 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 1 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 

 1784 :— 



"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 



