80 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
and South America. Of the remainder, about one-twelfth were 
shown to be European, and one-sixteenth Antarctic. When we 
find similar plants in two widely-separated parts of the globe, we 
are naturally led to consider how they have reached these 
distant localities ; and if no satisfactory solution of the question 
is afforded by an examination of their structural means of dis- 
persion, we are further tempted to speculate on the former land 
connections which have existed. The preponderance of Australian 
vlants in New Zealand is not to be accounted for by proximity 
alone, as the wide extent of sea which separates the countries 
forms the most effectual of all barriers to the migration of the 
majority of plants. Sir J. Hooker points out that no theory of 
transport of the forms common to the two regions will account 
for the absence of ‘“ the Eucalypti and other Myrtacee, of the whole 
immense genus of Acacia, and of its numerous Australian con- 
geners,” for the absence of Casuarina, Callitris, Dilleniacew, &c., and 
the rarity of such large Australian orders as Proteacew, Rutacee, and 
Stylidiee. Nor will any theory of variation account for these 
facts. And he continues :—‘ Considering that Eucalypti (Myrtacee) 
form the most prevalent forest feature over the greater part of 
South and East Australia, rivalled by the Leguminose alone, and 
that both these Orders (the latter especially) are admirably adapted 
constitutionally for transport, and that the species are not par- 
ticularly 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 difference between the floras of these two great 
masses of land being much greater than that between any two 
equally large continuous ones on the face of the globe.” Read in 
the light of our accumulated knowledge, the following remark is 
of interest :—‘* New Zealand, however, does not appear wholly as 
a satellite of Australia in all the genera common to both, for of 
several there are but few species in Australia, which hence shares 
the peculiarities of New Zealand, rather than New Zealand those 
of Australia.” That is to say, that he saw that those plants 
which occur both in Australia and New Zealand had not neces- 
sarily all passed from the former to the latter country, but that in 
many cases the opposite had occurred. After describing the 
affinities existing between the plants of New Zealand and those 
of South America, Europe, and the Antarctic regions respectively, 
and further pointing out some remarkable Pacific Island peculi- 
arities in our flora, Hooker concludes by stating that the existing 
botanical relationships ‘‘ cannot be accounted for by any theory of 
transport or variation,” but that they are ‘agreeable to the 
hypothesis of all being members of a once more extensive flora 
which has been broken up by geological and climatic causes.” 
Leaving out of account minor speculations on this subject, we 
may next consider the second writer named, who deals—although 
indirectly—with the question. 
Professor Hutton’s theory,* deduced from the distribution of 
the struthious birds in the Southern Hemisphere, is, that there 
formerly existed a great ‘“‘ Antarctic continent stretching from 
*“*On the Geographical Relations of the N,Z. Fauna,” by Capt. F. W. 
Hutton. N.Z. Inst. frans,, vol. V., p. 227. 
