MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. © OI 
New Guinea, receiving the greatest number of tropical species, 
and New Zealand, from its southern extension, the greatest 
number of Antarctic and American species; that the West 
Australian flora proved more aggressive than the eastern, and 
thus overran the whole continental area, giving it its peculiarly 
characteristic facies; and that of the Eastern species only those 
having considerable powers of dispersion have succeeded in 
spreading themselves westwards. 
In considering the geographical distribution of a flora it is 
usual to bring under review only the phanerogamic or flowering 
plants, because the spores of cryptograms furnish them with a | 
most remarkable power of dispersion by wind. Yet even the 
distribution of our ferns and other vascular cryptograms bears its 
testimony in support of the theory of the origin of the flora 
enunciated by Mr. Wallace. Excluding the endemic species, 
there are about 30 per cent. of remaining forms which are spread 
extensively over a great part of the globe, about 4 strictly American, 
another 30 of tropical, Asiatic, or Polynesian occurrence, and 
about 36 per cent. almost exclusively Australian. Of the 85 
species common to New Zealand and Australia, only 15 occur 
also in West Australia, and these are all species of very wide and 
general distribution. . 
In bringing to a conclusion these somewhat disconnected 
remarks, I shall endeavour to show how thty may be pieced 
together so as to give some idea of the present standing of the 
whole question. In examining such a matter, some starting point 
_ or line of demarcation must be taken, for were we to go far enough 
back we should have to account for the very existence of flowering 
plants themselves. There are those who believe that all our 
species have been produced by development from a few forms 
originally created in this region of the world, while others ignore 
the idea of development altogether. Wherever flowering plants 
did originate, it was most probably not in New Zealand; and all 
the information we possess on the subject leads to the conclusion 
that the parent forms of our flora were introduced from other 
lands during a long succession of ages, and that the process is 
still going on. As has been already stated, there are about 1085 
species of flowering plants known to occur in these islands, and 
of this number about 800 are endemic—that is, confined to this 
region. The relative numbers given in Hooker’s Fl. Nov. Zeal. 
are 730 and 507, but the additions during the last thirty years 
have chiefly been of endemic forms. These species have been 
developed by the peculiar conditions to which the parent forms 
have been subjected during long periods of isolation. What these 
conditions have actually been we donot know, but in the majority 
of cases the changes brought about have only been of specific 
value. Even where they amount to generic importance, the 
affinities can in nearly every case be traced, and we can form an 
approximately correct opinion as to the relationships indicated, 
The greater proportion of these endemic species is of distinctly 
Australian origin; there are also a number showing Polynesian 
affinities, and many of Antarctic relationship. The remarks 
therefore which apply to the plants common to New Zealand and 
the regions specified will apply to the originals from whence our 
endemic species have sprung. In accounting now for the species 
