3 
CHAPTER II. 
HISTORICAL. 
The past records of Mesophytic plants from New Zealand form, with very few 
exceptions, a long list of nomina nuda —genera and species stated to be new, but 
neither figured nor described. In a recent note(l) I have gone very fully into these 
pseudo-records, which it is impossible to recognize, enumerating no less than seventy-one 
instances. I need not therefore deal with these matters here in detail, save to record 
the names of Hector(2), Ettingshausen(3), and Crie(4) as the originators of these 
absurdities. In fact, until the end of 1912, there were only eleven valid records of 
pre-Cretaceous plants from New Zealand. The number of Neophytic records is con¬ 
siderably greater, but with these we are not concerned here. 
The. earliest valid determinations from New Zealand are by Unger(5), and date 
from 1864. He described and figured two Wealden plants from the Waikato Heads, 
in Auckland, a flora redescribed here. The first of these, his Polypodium Hochstelteri 
Unger(6), is a Cladophlebis, allied to C. australis (Morr.). The other, Asplenium palceo- 
pteris Unger(7), I have not seen; but as the specific name can hardly stand, since 
it has also been used as a generic term, I should propose to term it Sphenopteris 
(? Coniopteris) sp., and I have elsewhere(8) compared it with the Jurassic fern Spheno¬ 
pteris Murrayana (Brongn.). Professor Seward(9) has regarded it as identical with 
the Wealden Sphenopteris Fittoni Sew. 
The three other specimens from Pakawau, Massacre (or Golden) Bay, in the Province 
of Nelson, figured by Unger, are very obscure fragments, and these records niay be 
neglected. One of them is a Cladophlebis sp. 
Hector(lO) in 1886 figured, but did not describe, seventeen species from three 
important plant-bearing localities in New Zealand, the floras of which are dealt with 
in the present memoir. Some of these are small fragments, identical either with one 
another or with plants earlier described from other parts of the world. In several 
cases the names were already preoccupied(ll). I have already discussed each record 
at some length elsewhere(S), and I need only give here my conclusions in summary 
form. Of Hector’s seventeen species only two stand as new, while six others are 
m 
first records from New Zealand. These, despite the absence of descriptions, I regard 
as valid. 
There are first of all eight records from the Clent Hills, which I have revised 
as follows :— 
Hector’s Name. 
Asplenites rhomboides Hect. 
Pecopteris acuta Hect. .. 
Pecopteris linearis Hect. 
Vertebraria novce-zealandice Hect. 
Taxites maitai Hect. 
Pecopteris ovata Hect. .. 
Pecopteris obtusata Hect. 
Camptopteris incisa Hect. 
Revised Nomenclature. 
= Thinnfeldia sp.; cf. T. argentinica (Gein.). 
— Cladophlebis sp. 
= Cladophlebis australis (Morr.). 
= ? (Wrong generic determination, very 
obscure). 
= Elatocladus conferta (0. & M.). 
= Cladophlebis sp. 
= Cladophlebis sp. 
= Dictyophyllum acutilobum (Braun). 
(1) Arber (1913 2 ) ; see also Thomson (1913). 
(2) Hector (1870), (1878 1 ), (1879 1 ), (1879 2 ), 
(1886 1 ). 
(3) Ettingshausen (1887 1 ), (1887 2 ), (1890). 
(4) Crie (1888); see also (1889). 
(5) Unger (1864). 
(6) Unger (1864), pi. ii. 
1*—Mes. Floras. 
(7) Unger (1864), pi. i, figs. 4-8. 
(8) Arber (1913 2 3 4 5 6 ), p. 125. 
(9) Seward (1894), p. xxxiii. 
(10) Hector (1886 1 ), text-figs. 30, 30 a. 
(11) I have given a list of these in Arber 
(1913 2 ), p. 126. 
