CHAP. XXII 



THE FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND 



499 



when New Zealand was first brought into close connection 

 with it, by means of a great north-western extension of that 

 country, which, as already explained in our last chapter, is 

 so clearly indicated by the form of the sea bottom (See 

 Map, p. 471). The condition of New Zealand previous to 

 this event is very obscure. That it had long existed as a 

 more or less extensive land is indicated by its ancient sedi- 

 mentary rocks ; while the very small areas occupied by 

 Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, imply that much of the 

 present land was then also above the sea-level. The 

 country had probably at that time a scanty vegetation of 

 mixed Antarctic and Polynesian origin ; but now, for the 

 first time, it would be open to the free immigration of such 

 Australian types as were suitable to its climate, and which 

 had already reached the tropical and sub-tropical portions of 

 the Eastern Australian island. It is here that we obtain 

 the clue to those strange anomalies and contradictions pre- 

 sented by the New Zealand flora in its relation to Australia, 

 which have been so clearly set forth by Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 and which have so puzzled botanists to account for. But 

 these apparent anomalies cease to present any difficulty 

 when we see that the Australian plants in New Zealand 

 were acquired, not directly, but, as it were, at second hand, 

 by union with an island which itself had as yet only 

 received a portion of its existing flora. And then, further 

 difficulties were placed in the way of New Zealand re- 

 ceiving such an adequate representation of that portion 

 of the flora which had reached East Australia as its 

 climate and position entitled it to, by the fact of the union 

 being, not with the temperate, but with the tropical and 

 sub-tropical portions of that island, so that only those 

 groups could be acquired which were less exclusively 

 temperate, and had already established themselves in the 

 warmer portion of their new home.^ 



^ The large collection of fossil plants from the Tertiary beds of New 

 Zealand which have been recently described by Baron von Ettingshausen 

 {Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol, xxiii., pp. 237 — 310), prove that a change in the 

 vegetation has occurred similar to that which has taken place in Eastern 

 Australia, and that the plants of the two countries once resembled each 

 other more than they do now. We have, fir^, a series of groups now 

 living in Australia, but which have become extinct in New Zealand, as 



