NEW ZEALAND. 295 



•July 2nd. Went with Captain Drury (to whom I brought 

 letters from Admiral Beaufort) to the north shore of the harbour, 

 collected some shells, and found a small, but curious Alga 

 (Microdictyon), new in this place ; generally speaking, the rocks, 

 which are thickly studded with oysters, are poor in. Algae. 

 Captain Drury is in command of a surveying vessel, and has 

 promised to collect for me some things which I cannot now 

 obtain. On the 3rd he took me to a curious volcanic island, 

 Range Toto, forming the south head of the harbour, a cone 

 600 feet high ; the surface cindery, the cinders in many places 

 large, and heaped together in the wildest confusion ; fields of 

 oysters, but scarcely any Algae. Dr. Sinclair and Captain Drury 

 have been most kind, and I have also found a fellow- worker in 

 Mr. Knight (Auditor-General), who has a fine microscope, and 

 is an excellent draughtsman, and who is to send me drawings 

 and specimens of the smaller Alga?. 



July 6th. Walked to a valley where were some tree-ferns, but 

 only a few were in their season of beauty. I gathered seeds of 

 two species, Cyathea medullaris and G. dealbata. The first is 

 the noblest tree-fern I have ever seen. Its trunk (in the dense 

 forests) is often seventy feet high, but from twenty to forty is 

 the highest I saw it. The crown consists of twenty or more 

 huge fronds, each of them from twelve to eighteen feet long ; 

 the stalks are as black as ebony, and as thick as a man's wrist, 

 and the feathery fronds curve over most gracefully. The 

 C. dealbata is a smaller and more slender species, with the under 

 surface of the leaves white, contrasting well with the dark rich 

 green of C. medullaris. Dichsonia Antarctica (the Yan Diemen's 

 Land tree-fern) was also abundant in this valley, but it looked poor 

 and stunted beside the graceful Cyatheas. By the bank of the 

 rivulet Lomaria procera grew splendidly ; its fronds eighteen 

 feet high. Trichomanes were there, but not in fruit. One of 

 the handsomest of the smaller ferns was Todea pellucida, twelve 

 or fourteen inches long ; transparent and delicately feathered. 

 There were but few flowering plants, except a Leptospernum, 

 resembling a small myrtle, which covers all the hills around 

 Auckland. 



ISText day I visited Hobson's Glen, a similar locality about 

 two miles distant, where were groups of superb Cyatheas of all 

 ages, and pitched in picturesque situations. A variety of trees 



