ri 
broken character of its mountain district--— 
broken up in a manner probably without 
precedent on the surface of the globe at 
any similar elevation above sea level. Mr 
Travers pursues his arguments with elabo- 
rate minnteness, showing in a_ particular 
example he gives ‘‘within what narrow 
limits large differences may exist in the 
climatal and other conditions to which the 
same plants may be exposed.” With 
special reference to the veronicas, he says 
“they have a very wide range, both lateral 
and ascending, sundry forms of this plant 
being found all over the Middle Island, 
from sea level up to great altitudes.” He 
shows that, under similar conditions, the 
purely alpine forms, at alpine elevations, 
vary very little indeed, “preserving every- 
where an almost perfect similarity in their 
rominent prevalent characteristics.” Simi- 
arly with the species that affect low alta- 
tudes, very little variation is to be found— 
that they exhibit ‘“‘only such small 
anomalies as constantly occur in the separ- 
ate plants of any dominant species, witheu* 
the necessity of supposing them to result 
from hybridisation.” In a final paragraph 
of his paper he adds that “although we 
cannot, consistently with observed facts, and 
with the laws fairly deducible from those 
facts, reject hybridisation as one of the 
agents concerned in the production of new 
forms in a state of nature, we are not war- 
ranted in assuming that it is an active 
agent.”’ 
* * * ¥ 
The first systematic and comprehensive 
enumeration and description of the in- 
digenous plants of New Zealand was made 
by Dr J. D. Hooker, F.R.S., in his ‘*Flora 
Nove: Zealandie,” which formed the 
second part of the ‘‘Botany of the An- 
tactic Expedition of Sir J. Ross.”’ 
That expedition left England in 1769, and 
in August of that year Sir Joseph Banks 
and his companion, Dr Solander, the 
botanists of the expedition, landed at 
Poverty Bay, Tolaga Bay, Opunake, the 
Thames, Bay of Islands, Queen Charlotte's 
Sound, and one or two_ other localities, 
where they made good collections of plants. 
