434 
BOTANY. 
The emigrant from the flowery fields of Britain, cannot fail 
being struck with the nearly total want of these enlivening 
adjuncts to the landscape, when he first steps forth on those 
antipodal shores ; the interminable plains of sombre fern, will 
at first present an unfavourable contrast to his native land. 
Excepting the palm, dracenas, and fern, there is little striking 
in the New Zealand landscape. There are few annual and 
flowering plants, and of those only a very few which possess 
vivid colors; in their place are to be seen a great number of 
trees and ferns, but it is these which give the distinguishing 
feature to the vegetation. 
In England, there are not more than thirty-five native trees 
out of 1400 species. In New Zealand, of flowering trees, 
including shrubs above twenty feet high, there are upwards of 
113, or nearly one-sixth of the flora, besides 156 shrubs and 
plants with woody stems. The number of trees, the paucity 
of herbaceous plants, and the almost total absence of annuals, 
are amongst the most remarkable features of the flora. 
Dr. Hooker thinks that the conifer a will pi’ove, when known, 
to be the most universally prevalent natural family. 
The plants number 730. The ferns (including lycopodia) 
114, but the mosses and hepaticae 450; and the same enter¬ 
prising botanist expresses his opinion that the fungi also 
will be found to number more than 1000 species. The 
algae enumerated by Dr. Harvey, are nearly 300 species, 
which have from their beauty and singularity long been 
objects of great interest to the botanist. Thus the total 
number of species according to Dr. Hooker is 2000: and the 
orders most numerous in species are composite, 90; cypera- 
ceae, 66 ; gramineae, 53 ; scrophularineae, 40; orchideas, 39 ; 
rubiaceae, 26; epacrideae and umbellifera, each 23; none of 
which can be said to form prevalent features in the landscape, 
though none are rare. 
The most tropical of all the New Zealand trees is the nikau 
(areca sapida.) The family of the Palmce has only this re¬ 
presentative ; it is a most graceful and beautiful tree ; it often 
attains the height of forty feet and a foot in diameter, the 
flower forms a large droop of a flesh color, not much unlike a 
