206 



laudable ambition to be the first discoverer of some new natural form, has 

 always been one of the strongest incentives to the earnest student of nature. 



It is not, however, the mere completion of our roll of species that is 

 wanted. A very large number of New Zealand plants are highly variable in 

 their character. To obtain a thorough insiglit into tlie limits of this variation, 

 and to discover what we can of its probable causes, forms a far more attractive 

 and interesting sphere of labour than the mere collection and determination of 

 species. As an illustration of this variation, I have brought with me, 

 four different forms of one of our commonest plants. The specimens of the 

 common "lawyer," or Tataramoa {^Rubiis australis), exhibited, are referred by 

 botanists to one species, and it is stated that passage-forms occur, connecting 

 all these apparently different plants. It will be highly interesting to obtain 

 complete series of such passage-forms, if they do indeed exist, with information 

 as to the exact localities which they affect. In regard to this particular shrub, 

 I must confess to some incredulity, in spite of the concurrent testimony of 

 botanists. The strangely different forms marked 1, 2, 3, and 4, have been 

 gathered close to one another on the same soil, growing under the same aspect, 

 being, in fact, produced under identical circumstances. Many problems of 

 this sort lie before tlie botanist in New Zealand. I do not propose to 

 detain you by instancing the more prominent cases of excessive variation 

 which characterize the flora of New Zealand. There is a very interesting 

 paper, by Mr. Travers, in the first volume of the Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute on the subject, and Dr. Lindsay's Contribictiotis to New 

 Zealand Botany is full of remarks upon it. The latter gives (Contributions to 

 New Zealand Botany, p. 46) a long list of genera, which are exceedingly 

 variable, including more than a hundred different species of plants ; and says 

 of them, that they present " such a continuity of variation — such chain of 

 passage-form connecting varieties and species — so great a variation of the 

 individual from the type, that limitation at all is either set at defiance, or at 

 least the limits assigned in published floras are much too trivial, precise, and 

 minute." 



In connection with this subject, some of the geological features of this 

 island are worthy of notice. It appears to be a generally admitted theory with 

 our geologists, that at a comparatively recent period the elevation of the land 

 which now forms the eastern portion of New Zealand was accompanied by 

 depression of the western ai-ea. Something like a general falling over to the 

 westward is indicated, bringing the tertiary formations of the eastern sea-board 

 over the level of the sea. Accepting this theory as the best explanation of 

 observed facts, an interesting question arises for the botanist : how far are 

 these endless variations of New Zealand plants in the central and eastern 

 areas, due to the fact that, though directly descended from those of the western 

 region, they have had to contend with natural circumstances altogether diflerent 



