9 
interesting discoveries had been made in 
the South Island and that these added fully 
one-third to the previously known number 
of New Zealand’s flowering plants. It wil! 
be seen from this how successful had been 
the plant-hunting expeditions of the botan 
ists of those early days who were scouring 
the mountains and plains of New Zealand. 
* * * * 
We have to go right back to so 
distant a period as 13834 to trace the 
earliest acquirement of any comprehensive 
knowledge of our native flora by resident 
botanists. It was in that year that 
the Kev. W. Colenso arrived. Mr Cheese. 
man, in the preface to his ‘““Manual of the 
New Zealand Flora,” mentions that Mr 
Colenso was induced, first by the visit of 
the illustrious Darwin in the ‘‘Beagie,”’ in 
1835, and later by Allan Cunningham in 
1838, to take up the study of the botany 
of his adopted country, and forwarded his 
specimens from time to time to W. J 
Hooker at Kew. He traversed in the course 
of the next few years practically the whole 
of the North Island, and was the first 
Kuropean to reach Lake Waikaremoana by 
way of the rugged Urewera country. Thi; 
journey covered a considerable part of the 
years 1841-2. In the following year he con. 
tinued his researches and made long jour- 
neys in the Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay 
districts, ascending the Wairoa River 
Waikaremoana, and returning by way of 
Rotorua and Tauranga. In 1844 he moved 
from the Bay of Islands to Hawke’s Bay 
and in 1845 made a botanising trip to the 
Ruahine range, ascending to the summit 
and being rewarded by the discovery cf 
many previously unknown plants. Mz 
Cheeseman pays a high tribute to Mr 
Oolenso’s botanical explorations in the early 
days of the colony. His zealous efforts, fre- 
quently made under circumstances involviny 
great privations and often no little danger. 
did not diminish with advancing years, “for 
the Transactions of the New Zealand Insi- 
tute contain papers written by him describ- 
ing plants collected during a journey made 
to the flanks of the Ruahine range in iis 
eighty-fifth year’’! 
