CHAPTER XXII 



THE FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND: ITS AFFINITIES AND 

 PROBABLE ORIGIN 



Relations of the New Zealand Flora to that of Australia— General Features 

 of the Australian Flora — The Floras of South-eastern and South-western 

 Australia— Geological Explanation of the Differences of these two 

 Floras — The Origin of the Australian Element in the New Zealand Flora 

 — Tropical Character of the New Zealand Flora Explained — Species 

 Common to New Zealand and Australia mostly Temperate Forms — Why 

 Easily Dispersed Plants have often Restricted Ranges — Summary and 

 Conclusion on the New Zealand Flora. 



Although plants have means of dispersal far exceeding 

 those possessed by animals, yet as a matter of fact com- 

 paratively few species are carried for very great distances, 

 and the flora of a country taken as a whole usually affords 

 trustworthy indications of its past history. Plants, too, are 

 more numerous in species than the higher animals, and are 

 almost always better known ; their affinities have been more 

 systematically studied ; and it may be safely affirmed that 

 no explanation of the origin of the fauna of a country can 

 be sound,which does not also explain, or at least harmonise 

 with, the distribution and relations of its flora. The dis- 

 tribution of the two may be very different, but both should 

 be explicable by the same series of geographical changes. 

 The relations of the flora of New Zealand to that of 

 Australia have long formed an insoluble enigma for botan- 

 ists. Sir Joseph Hooker, in his most instructive and 

 masterly essay on the flora of Australia, says : — " Under 

 whatever aspect I regard the flora of Australia and of New 

 Zealand, I find all attempts to theorise on the possible 

 causes of their community of feature frustrated by anom- 

 alies in distribution, such as I believe no two other similarly 

 situated countries in the globe present. Everywhere else 



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