PREFACE. 
9* 
of all my predecessors, whether as collectors or authors, up to the year 
1S50, and shall therefore only briefly recapitulate them here. 
In August 1769, Sir Joseph Banks and his companion Dr. Solan- 
der visited the islands in Captain Cook’s first voyage, and collected 
in Poverty Bay, Tegadoo, Tolaga, Opuragi, the Thames river, Bay of 
Islands, Queen Charlotte’s Sound and Admiralty Bay. They obtained 
about 360 Flowering plants and ferns, had folio drawings made of most 
of them, and excellent manuscript descriptions. These MSS., together 
with about 200 engraved plates, were, I believe, all prepared for the 
press, and are preserved in the British Museum, but have never been 
published. 
In 1772 Captain Cook again visited New Zealand, accompanied by 
the two Forsters, Beinwold and George (father and son), and by 
Dr. Sparrman; they collected at Dusky Bay and Queen Charlotte’s 
Sound. Their herbarium amounted to only about 160 species of 
Flowering plants and ferns. Of these, 150 are published in Forster’s 
‘ Florulae Insularum Australium Prodromus;’ and a few others in his 
‘ Characteres Generum,’ and £ De Plantis Esculentis Insularum Oceani 
Australis Commentatio Botanica.’ The specimens were distributed to 
various museums, and being often carelessly named, much confusion has 
crept into descriptive works. 
In 1777, Captain Cook, during his third voyage, visited New Zealand. 
On this occasion Mr. Anderson, his surgeon, was the botanical col- 
lector, who obtained very little indeed, and nothing of any importance. 
In 1791, Captain Vancouver arrived in Dusky Bay, on his way to sur- 
vey the coasts of North-West America, having with him as surgeon Mr. 
Archibald Menzies, a very assiduous collector of Flowerless plants, 
who procured many species of Filices, Musci, and Hepaticce , most of 
which are described at length, and beautifully illustrated in Hooker’s 
‘Musci Exotici,’ and in Hooker and Greville’s ‘ leones Filicum.’ 
In 1822, Captain Duperrev visited the islands in the French dis- 
covery corvette ‘ Coquille,’ when one of his officers, the late Admiral 
D’Urville, made excellent collections. 
In 1827, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Dumont D’Urville again 
visited New Zealand in the same ship, renamed the ‘ Astrolabe,’ accom- 
panied by an able naturalist, M. Lesson, when additional botanical 
collections were made in Cook’s Straits, the Thames river, and the Bay 
of Islands. The materials of this voyage (containing upwards of 200 
Flowering plants and ferns) were published by M. A. Bichard, in his 
‘Essai d’une F’lore de la Nouvelle-Zelande,’ with folio plates (Paris, 
