THE 
TASMANIAN JOURNAL 
OF 
NATURAL SCIENCE. 
Art. VI. A Classification and Description of some newly 
discovered Ferns , collected in the Northern Island of Neio 
Zealand, in the summer of 1841-2. By W. Colenso, 
Esq. 
It is now nearly seven years since a monograph on the then 
known botany of the islands of New Zealand, from the pen 
of the late Allan Cunningham, Esq., first appeared in the 
pages of the second volume of the Companion to the Bo¬ 
tanical Magazine, which paper was continued and completed 
(on the discontinuance of that work) in Vols. I.—IV. of 
Annals of Natural History. This “ precursor ” of the botany 
of this increasingly interesting country contained G39 species* 
of plants, nearly the whole of which have hitherto been de¬ 
tected only in these islands. This enumeration embraced the 
published discoveries of those truly eminent men, Sir Joseph 
Banks and Dr. Solander, who accompanied our illustrious 
* “ If to this aggregate number of species thus got together and here 
enumerated sixty be added, as in all probability comprehending the re¬ 
maining number of plants of the first voyage ot Cook, which are pre¬ 
served in the Banks iati Herbarium and continue yet unpublished, seven 
lwndred distinct plants may he said to be the number at present known 
of the doraof these islands.”—A. Cunn, in Comp. Hot, Aftfg. , vol. ii., 
p. 230. 
VOL. II. NO. VIII. 
M* 
