INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxvu 



co-ordinates a body of well established facts, does so without violence to nature, and with a due regard 

 to the possible results of future discoveries. I may add, that after twelve years' devotion to the 

 laborious accumulation and arrangement of facts in the field and closet, untrammelled by any theo- 

 ries to combat or vindicate, I have thought that I might bring forward the conclusions to which my 

 studies have led me, with less chance of incurring such a reproach, than those would, who, with far 

 better abilities and judgment, have not had my experience and opportunities. 



CHAPTER III. 



§ 1. ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY AND AFFINITIES OE THE NEW ZEALAND FLORA. 



In the following remarks, the flowering plants alone of New Zealand are referred to, except when it 

 is otherwise stated: my object being primarily to show the relation between the botany of New 

 Zealand and that of the south temperate continents, I have, for several reasons, considered that 

 the introduction of the Ferns even was not expedient : — 1. Because they include only one family of 

 Oryptogamia, and that the only one towards a knowledge of whose number and distribution in New 

 Zealand we have even approximately accurate data. — 2. Because the diffusion of their minute spores 

 is so ubiquitous*, and their growth is so dependent on one climatic element, viz. humidity, that 

 their geographic distribution does not harmonize with that of flowering plants in general. 



The traveller from whatever country, on arriving in New Zealand, finds himself surrounded by 

 a vegetation that is almost wholly new to him ; with little that is at first sight striking, except the 

 Tree-fern and Cordyline of the northern parts, and nothing familiar, except possibly the Mangrove ; 

 and as he extends his investigations into the Flora, with the exception of Pomaderris and Leptosper- 

 mum, he finds few forms that remind him of other countries. Of the numerous Pines, very few recall 

 by habit and appearance the idea attached either to trees of this family in the northern hemisphere, or 

 to the Callitris of New Holland, or to the Araucarke of that country and Norfolk Island ; while of 

 the families that on examination indicate the only close affinity between the New Zealand Flora and 

 that of any other country, (the Myrtacea, Epacrhlece, and Proteacece,) few resemble in general aspect 



* A most remarkable exemplification of this is found in the occurrence of Lycopodium cernuum (a most univer- 

 sally distributed Fern in all warm climates) in the Azores, where it grows only around some hot springs. Within 

 the last few months it has been also collected in St. Paul's Island (lat. 38° south), by the naturalists of Captain 

 Denham's Expedition to the Pacific Islands : there, too, only where the ground is much heated by sprinss. These 

 facts are most remarkable, for the Lycopodium cernuum does not inhabit Madeira or any spot in the Azores, except 

 the vicinity of the hot springs, and St. Paul's Island is also far beyond its natural isothermal iu that longitude of the 

 southern hemisphere; and it is to be remarked, that in neither island is the Lycopodium accompanied by any other 

 tropical plant, which would indicate the aerial transport of larger objects than the microscopic spores of lycopodia, 

 which are raised in clouds from large surfaces covered with the gregarious species. 



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