HISTORICAL RECORD 9 



the same time. The immigrants on arrival are certainly in an exhausted 

 state and physically incapable of defending themselves from the 

 assaults of enemies. The shores of the new land are patrolled by 

 great numbers of gulls and similar predaceous birds, which would 

 make short work of any travel-worn immigrants that landed and did 

 not immediately find cover. The chances of getting food are also 

 problematical. But even assuming that the individuals survived and 

 throve, the chances of their finding mates are very remote ; so that 

 altogether the probabilities are against the establishment of the species. 

 As a matter of fact they do not succeed. The only bird which appears 

 to have come into New Zealand since the days of European settlement 

 and to have established itself, is the Wax-eye or Blight-bird {Zosterops 

 caerulescens). 



In taking a survey of the existing Flora of New Zealand in con- 

 nection with its relationship to other plant-associations, and taking 

 Cheeseman's Manual as my authority for the following figures, I 

 desire to state at the outset that I do not attach too much importance 

 to numerical comparisons, because I realise the enormously different 

 values attached by systematists to different species. These values 

 depend largely upon the personal equation, and further on the amount 

 of detailed study given to any specified groups of organisms. There 

 are certain genera of New Zealand plants which are apparently in 

 a state of flux even at the present time. These have been submitted 

 to close examination, a vast amount of material has been gone through, 

 and in consequence innumerable differences have been recognised, 

 and a large number of species defined. Such, for example, are 

 Ranunculus with 37 New Zealand species, Epilobium 28, Coprosma 

 39, Olearia 35, Celmisia 43, Senecio 30, Veronica 84, and Carex 53. 

 Many of these are sharply defined, easily recognised species, but for 

 others the specific diagnosis is only the central rallying point for a 

 large group of individuals showing considerable divergencies in many 

 directions. I am safe in asserting that if similar detail were gone 

 into with all the plants grouped under such common names as, for 

 example, Accenamicrophylla, Gaultheriaantipoda, or Pimelea lamgata, 

 and many others which might be named, it would be found that each 

 deserves to be separated into a group of distinct species. Keeping 

 this reservation in mind, we can still form an approximate estimate 

 of the relationships shown by any given aggregation of species. Thus 

 of the total number of 1396 species of New Zealand flowering plants 

 recorded by Cheeseman, no fewer than 363 (or almost 19 per cent.) 

 are also found to occur in Australia. Of these 134 occur both in 

 Australia and Tasmania (eight in Tasmania alone), while the remaining 

 129 have a wider range, some being common tropical or sub-tropical 



