4 
more as we make efforts to fathom their 
mysterious power. May we not, then, ex- 
tend the region of romance te the mysteries 
as profound that surround the plant ife 
of the world? How wonderful is the zer- 
mination of the tiny seed that has an in 
herent power of development mto the torest 
giant, or into one or other of the thou- 
sands of forms of shrubs or flowers whose 
varying leaves and brilliant colourings and 
perfumes are among the greatest marvels 
of Nature. And in this favoured New 
Zealand of ours, if we have not the bril- 
liance and the fragrance in our indigenous 
flowering plants that are among the feat- 
ures of those of other Jands, we can certainly 
claim a variety and a charm in our plant hfe 
that has excited the wonder and admiration 
of scientific botanists from the days of 
Banks and Solander, of Hooker and Bid- 
will and Raoul, of Sinclair and Cunning- 
ham and Dieffenbach, of Colenso, Travers, 
Haast, Lindsay, Cunningham, Monro, 
Buchanan, and, to come to names 
with which we of the present day 
are more familiar still, of Kirk, 
Cheeseman, Cockayne, Petrie, G. M. Thom- 
son, and H. J. Matthews. And with the 
above list the names of enthusiastic col- 
lectors is by no means _ exhausted. 
Such, for example, are M‘Mahon, Enys, 
Armstrong, Traill, Townson, Chapman, Dr 
M’Kay, of Greymouth, Speden, Poppe!- 
well, Crosby-Smith, Gibbs, M‘Intyre, Aston, 
Carse, Treadwell, Wilcox, Hill, Kelly, and 
Ww. A. Thomson. To all these men _ the 
lovers of our native flora are indebted for 
the valuable and laborious work performed 
by them in their collecting expeditions ex- 
tending over many years. The botanists 
who collected in our forests and on our 
mountains and plains in the first half of the 
last century, a record of whose extraor- 
dinary industry as collectors is scattered 
through the text books of Kirk and 
Cheeseman and Cockayne, of Messrs 
Laing and Blackwell, and in hundreds_ of 
napers in the Transactions of the New 
Zealand Institute, will stand for all time 
as examples of men _ whose enthusiasm 
and immense physical exertions should 
appeal to our present-day students and 
stimulate them to similar efforts. 
