CoLENSO. — Botany of the Nortli Island of JSfew Zealand. 257 



only are found in New Zealand. Of the wliole twenty -four or twenty-five 

 gpecies of those three great natural families found in New Zealand, only 

 one species, the common tea-tree {Leptospermum scopariuni), is found in 

 Tasmania and Australia, while those countries possess upwards of 2,200 

 known species. 



21. Darwin indeed states, that " New Zealand in its endemic plants 

 is much more closely related to Australia, the nearest main land, than to 

 any other region."* Dr. Hooker, however, in his elaborate Introductory 

 Essay to the Mora Tasmani(S,-\ does not go so far as this, although he, too, 

 says, " that 216 or one-fourth of the New Zealand phsenogams are natives 

 of Australia, and of these 115 species are confined to these two countries ;" 

 and, " that of the 115 specimens peculiar to Australia and New Zealand, 

 only twenty-six belong to genera peculiar to those countries, and only sis to 

 the long list of Australian genera which contain upwards of twenty 

 species each." Nevertheless it is believed that this comparison will be very 

 materially altered when the ivJiole of the flora of New Zealand and the 

 many other Polynesian Islands shall be fully known. Already, since the 

 publication of the Mora Novce-ZelandicB, have new species been discovered 

 in New Zealand, particularly in the South Island ; where, too, are several 

 South American genera hitherto not detected in the North Island (as 

 Donatia, BostJcovia, Oaimardia, &c.), and, consequently, not referred to in 

 this essay. And of those twenty-sis species belonging to genera at present 

 only common to Australia and New Zealand, may it not reasonably be 

 expected that some of these will be also found in the many unexplored sub- 

 tropical islands ? Again, seeing that the striking characteristic Australian 

 genera, while found in Tasmania, are wholly wanting in Nev/ Zealand, 

 and that the characteristic New Zealand genera are also (as such) wanting 

 in Australia, is it not evident that it is not so much from what is (the 

 positive), as from what is not (the negative), that the better comparison can 

 in this case be drawn, and the truer botanical afGuity deduced ? Eeviewing, 

 then, what is already known of New Zealand, and southern insular botany, 

 and looking forward expectingly to future kindred revelations, it is not 

 unreasonably believed that the botany of the New Zealand group will be 

 found to be peculiar, and not so closely related with the nearest main- 

 land (Australia) as with many other small islands, and therefore forming 

 with them a southern botanical insular region, of which New Zealand is 

 probably about the existing centre. 



22. In bringing this necessarily imperfect outline of the botanical 



* Origiu of Species, cliap. xii. 



t Page 88. Au admirable work, well wortli the serious study of every student of New 

 Zealand botany. 



33 



