1 
INTRODUCTION. 
ancestors of the Moas and Kiwis and the tropical plants referred to, of the marsupial fauna and the 
peculiar temperate flora so characteristic of Australia as we now know it *. 
Sir Joseph Hooker, undoubtedly the ablest and most accomplished of living botanists, referring 
to an apparently insoluble enigma in the relations of the flora of New Zealand with that of Australia, 
thus expresses himself in the Introduction to his well-known ‘ Flora of Australia ’ : — 
“ Under whatever aspect I regard the flora of Australia and New Zealand, I find all attempts to 
theorize on the possible causes of their community of feature frustrated by anomalies in distribution, 
such as I believe no two other similarly situated countries on the globe present. Everywhere else I 
recognize a parallelism or harmony in the main common features of contiguous floras, which conveys 
the impression of their generic affinity, at least, being affected by migration from centres of dispersion 
in one of them, or in some adjacent country. In this case it is widely different. Regarding the 
question from the Australian point of view, it is impossible in the present state of science to reconcile 
the fact of Acacia, Eucalyptus, Casuarina, Callitris, &c. being absent in New Zealand, with any 
theory of trans-oceanic migration that may be adopted to explain the presence of other Australian 
plants in New Zealand ; and it is very difficult to conceive of a time or of conditions that could 
explain these anomalies, except by going back to epochs when the prevalent botanical as well as 
geographical features of each were widely different from what they are now. On the other hand, if 
I regard the question from the New-Zealand point of view, I find such broad features of resemblance 
and so many connecting links that afford irrefragable evidence of a close botanical connection, that I 
cannot abandon the conviction that these great differences will present the least difficulties to what- 
ever theory may explain the whole case.” 
It will be seen that the theory of which an outline has been given, while accounting in a rational 
manner for the marked peculiarities of the New-Zealand fauna, offers at the same time a probable 
solution of some of the strange anomalies of its flora in relation to that of Australia. 
Mr. Wallace has explained that, in zoology, discontinuity in the areas of distribution must be 
accepted as an indication of antiquity, and that the more widely the fragments are scattered the more 
ancient we may, as a rule, take the parent group to be. “ Thus the marsupials of South America 
and Australia are connected by forms which lived in North America and Europe; the camels of 
Asia and the llamas of the Andes had many extinct common ancestors in North America ; the lemurs 
of Africa and Asia had their ancestors in Europe, as did the Trogons of South America, Africa, and 
* “ If we examine the geological map of Australia, we shall see good reason to conclude that the eastern and the western 
divisions of the country first existed as separate islands, and only became united at a comparatively recent epoch. This is 
indicated by an enormous stretch of Cretaceous and Tertiary formations extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria completely across 
the continent to the mouth of the Murray River. During the Cretaceous period, therefore, and probably throughout a considerable 
portion of the Tertiary epoch, there must have been a wide arm of the Bea occupying this area, dividing the great mass of land 
on the west — the true seat and origin of the typical Australian flora — from a long but narrow belt of land on the east, indicated 
by the continuous mass of Secondary and Palaeozoic formations already referred to, which extend uninterruptedly from 
Tasmania to Cape York. Whether this formed one continuous land, or was broken up into islands, cannot be positively 
determined ; but the fact that no marine Tertiary bods occur in the whole of this area renders it probable that it was almost, if 
not quite, continuous, and that it not improbably extended across to what is now New Guinea. At this epoch, then, Australia 
would consist of a very large and fertile western island, almost or quite extra-tropical, and extending from the Silurian rocks of 
the Flinders range in South Australia to about 150 miles west of the present west coast, and southward to about 350 miles south 
of the Great Australian Bight. To the east of this, at a distance of about 250 or 400 miles, extended, in a north and south 
direction, a long but comparatively narrow island, stretching from far south of Tasmania to Yew Guinea; while the crystal- 
line and Secondary formations of Central North Australia probably indicate the existence of one or more large islands in that 
direction .”- — Island Life. 
