436 
THE AGE OP NEW ZEALAND. 
which, have survived the destruction. To this effect are the 
remarks of Dr. Hooker : — 
“ Enough is here given to show that many of the peculi- 
arities of each of the three grand areas of land in the southern 
latitutes are representative ones, affecting a botanical rela- 
tionship as strong as that which prevails throughout the 
lands within arctic and north temperate zones, and which is 
not to be accounted for by any theory of transport or variation, 
but which is agreeable to the hypothesis of all being members 
of a once more extensive flora, which has been broken up by 
geological and climatic causes.” 
The striking resemblance which the New Zealand flora 
bears to that of the carboniferous age of Europe, suggests 
also the probability of that flora having once been in a great 
measure coextensive with the earth's surface, and that simi- 
lar climates then possessed a similar form of vegetation, 
which each convulsion destroyed or infringed upon to the 
extent of its range, and gave birth to altered forms of vege- 
table and animal existence. 
Dr. Unger, of Vienna, one of the most distinguished and 
cautious of leading botanical paleontologists, to account for 
the similarity, not to say identity of vegetable forms existing 
in the Eocene beds of Europe and the present flora of Aus- 
tralia, says : — 
“ New Holland and the neighbouring isles have a vegeta- 
tion not found in any other part of the world. Several 
natural orders and genera are there found in overwhelming 
abundance, for instance, certain myrtaceous plants, euca- 
lypti, epacrids, proteaceoe, santaleoe, monimeacoe, and au- 
thobolece, mimosa, araucaria, podocarpus, and partly callitris. 
In the European Eocene formation not only is found the 
polymorphous order myrtaceae, the genus eucalyptus itself 
is represented amongst the fossils, also the epacrids, prote- 
aceoe, dryandra, hakea, embothrium, grevillea, lomatia, per- 
sonia, petrophyllum. Of the genus Leptomeria, several 
species found in the Tyrol and lignite deposits of the Rhine. 
Nor must we omit the genus Laurella, peculiar to New Zea- 
land and Chili, all these fragments make^it evident that the 
