INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



Australia, which hence shares the peculiarities of New Zealand, rather than New Zealand those of 

 Australia: this is the case with Pittosporum, Coprosmu, Olearia, Celmisia, Forstera, Gaultheria, 

 Dracophyllum, Veronica, Fagus, Dacrydium, and Uncinia ; of which there are comparatively few 

 species in Australia and Tasmania: on the other hand, Stackhousiece, Pomaderris, Leptospermum, 

 Eococarpus, Persoonia, Epacris, Leucopogon, Goodenia, and a few other large Australian genera, are 

 very scantily represented in New Zealand. 



If the number of plants common to Australia and New Zealand is great, and quite unaccountable 

 for by transport, the absence of certain very extensive groups of the former country is still more 

 incompatible with the theory of extensive migration by oceanic or aerial currents. This absence is 

 most conspicuous in the case of Eucalypti, and almost every other genus of Myrtacece, of the whole 

 immense genus of Acacia, and of its numerous Australian congeners, with the single exception of 

 Clianthus, of which there are but two known species, one in Australia, and the other in New Zealand 

 and Norfolk Island. 



The rarity of Proteacece, Rutacece, and Stylidece, and the absence of Casuarina and Callitris, of 

 any Goodenia but G. littoralis (equally found in South America), of Tremandrece, Dilleniacece, and 

 of various genera of Monocoiy ketones, admit of no explanation, consistent with migration over water 

 having introduced more than a very few of the plants common to these tracts of land. Considering 

 that Eucalypti form the most prevalent forest feature over the greater part of South and East 

 Australia, rivalled by the Leguminosce 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 their absence from New Zealand cannot be too 

 strongly pressed on the attention of the botanical geographer, for it is the main cause of the differ- 

 ence 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. If no theory of transport will account 

 for these facts, still less will any of variation; for of the three genera of Leguminosce which do 

 inhabit New Zealand, none favour such a theory ; one, Clianthus, I have just mentioned ; the second, 

 Edwardsia, consists of one tree, identical with a Juan Fernandez and Chilian one, and unknown 

 in New Holland ; and the third genus (Carmicheelia) is quite - peculiar, and consists of a few species 

 feebly allied to some New Holland plants, but exceedingly different in structure from any of that 

 extensive Natural Order. 



2. Species of South American affinity. — The South American species in New Zealand amount 

 to 89, or one-eighth : of these some are absolutely peculiar to the two countries, as Myosurus arista- 

 tus, two species of Coriaria, Edwardsia grandiflora, Haloragis alata, Hydrocofyle Americana, and 

 Veronica elliptica. Of these the Edivardsia is by far the most striking case, from the size of the 

 tree : it appears to have a much wider range in New Zealand than in Chili, and supposing it to have 

 been transported between these countries, it is difficult to say which was the parent one ; its affinities 

 would, however, incline us to consider it amongst the aborigines of the former. It is by representa- 

 tive genera and species that the affinity of the New Zealand and South American floras is best 

 shown, and this most conspicuottsly by Fuchsia and Calceolaria, two most remarkable genera, 

 confined to these two countries, but by far the most abundant to the west of the Andes. Here again 

 the amount of affinity is differently displayed by each; of the Calceolarias one is so closely allied to 

 an American species, that I doubt the propriety of keeping them separate, while the other appears a 

 very distinct species ; the Fuchsias are both extremely peculiar, one of them being the only species 

 that has no petals. Altogether there are 76 genera common to New Zealand and South America. 



