486 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the means of continually adding to tins list. Still the general conclusions 

 arrived at in the "Flora Novas - Z ealandi^e " have not been materially altered 

 by recent discoveries. 



Sir Jose^Dh Hooker was struck by the preponderance of Australian types 

 among those plants which he found to be common both to New Zealand 

 and other countries of the world. Nearly one-fourth of these plants were 

 Australian, nearly one-eighth South American, and one-tenth common to 

 both Australia and South America. Of the remainder about one-twelfth 

 were shown to be European and one-sixteenth antarctic. When we find 

 similar plants in two widely-separated parts of the globe, we are naturally 

 led to consider how they have reached these distant localities, and if no 

 satisfactory solution of the question is afforded by an examination of their 

 structural means of dispersion, we are further tempted to speculate on the 

 former land connections which have existed. The preponderance of Aus- 

 tralian plants in New Zealand is not to be accounted for by proximity alone, 

 as the wide extent of sea which separates the countries forms the most 

 effectual of all barriers to the migration of the majority of plants. Sir J. 

 Hooker points out that no theory of transport of the forms common to the 

 two regions wil-1 account for the absence of " the Eucalypti and other 

 Myrtacea, of the whole immense genus of Acacia, and of its numerous Aus- 

 tralian congeners," or the absence of Casuarina, Gallitris, Dilleniacecs, etc., 

 and the variety of such large Australian orders as Proteacece, PaitacecE, and 

 Stylidiea. Nor will any theory of variation account for these facts. And 

 he continues : " Considering that Eucalypti (Myrtacece) form the most 

 prevalent forest feature over the greater part of South and East Australia, 

 rivalled by the LegmninoscB alone, and that both these Orders (the latter 

 especially) are admirably adapted constitutionally for transport, and that 

 the species are not particularly local or scarce, and grow well wherever 

 sown, the fact of theii- absence from New Zealand cannot be too strongly 

 pressed on the attention of the botanical geographer, for it is the main 

 cause of the difference between the floras of these two great masses of land 

 being much greater than that between any two equally large contiguous 

 ones on the face of the globe." Eead in the light of our accumulated 

 knowledge, the following remark is of interest : " New Zealand, however, 

 does not appear wholly as a satellite of Australia in all the genera common 

 to both, for of several there are but few species in Australia, which hence 

 shares the peculiarities of New Zealand rather than New Zealand those of 

 Australia." That is to say, that he saw that those plants which occur both 

 in Australia and New Zealand had not necessarily all passed from the 

 former to the latter country, but that in many cases the opposite had 

 occurred. After describing the affinities existing between the plants of New 



