1919.] 
Reviews and Abstracts. 
407 
REVIEWS AND ABSTRACTS. 
New Zealand Plants and their Story, by L. Cockayne. New Zealand 
Board of Science and Art, Manual No. 1, pp. xvi, 248, 113 fig. 
Cloth, 7s. 6d., paper, 5s. 
Nine years ago was published a book, New Zealand Plants and their Story , 
by Dr. Cockayne, F.R.S. The supply having been exhausted for some con¬ 
siderable time, and there being still a wide demand for it, a second edition 
has just been published. The subject is treated in the same popular way 
as in the first book, but the matter has been rearranged, largely rewritten, 
and augumented, so that the present is practically a new book. The first 
edition was issued by the Education Department, the second as the first 
number of a manual series by the Board of Science and Art. 
Dr. Cockayne first introduces the plants by telling in brief the story 
of the great botanists who first made known the wonders of the New 
Zealand flora, and pays the tribute of genius to genius in his admiration 
and appreciation of their work. In the present volume his own work intro¬ 
duces us to quite a different side of botanical study. Up till comparatively 
recent years it was considered sufficient to describe the plants, classify 
them, anatomize them and describe their structure, record their habitats ; 
but Dr. Cockayne has attempted to show how they have come to 
occupy their present habitats, how their present form and characteristics 
have been acquired and the relation they bear to their habitat, how plants 
five in associations or communities, how these communities are affected 
and modified by the* contact of man and other animals and by other 
plants : he tells us, in fact, the biographies of the plants—or, rather, he 
records as much of their autobiographies as the plants themselves can be 
induced to tell, and fills in somewhat of the gaps where they are silent. 
He analyses the various forms assumed by plants, showing their relation 
to one another and to their surroundings. In this comparatively new 
science, the science of plant ecology, Dr. Cockayne is one of the pioneers, 
and is recognized as such throughout the scientific world. 
Starting at the sea-coast, he takes us inland, describing the various 
forms that are found on the coast itself, on the coastal dunes, in the salt 
swamps, the salt meadows, the fresh-water swamps. He takes us through 
the forests and shows the many wonderful adaptations of the plants to 
cope with the varying conditions in which they are placed ; he shows the 
relation of the tree and shrub forms, and draws attention to the strange 
differences of form through which certain of the trees pass as they grow from 
the seedling to the mature tree. Through the forests and on to the grass¬ 
lands, lowland and mountain ; on to the broad shingle-beds ; on to the rocky 
mountain-sides, the mountain-tops, we accompany him, and hear him, as 
it were, thinking as he walks along, admiring and inquiring. He shows 
meadows in creation, forests in destruction. He takes us to the outlying 
islands, and shows us how their vegetation differs from, and how it 
resembles, that of New Zealand. He speaks of the methods of classification 
and naming of plants, and removes the scientific aloofness by using popular 
names as well as scientific, and inventing popular names where they do not 
exist. 
He traces the relation of New Zealand plants with those in other parts 
of the world, shows the distribution of the varieties through certain 
