BOTANICAL DISCOVERY. XXV 
three such beautiful plants, peculiar to their flora, as the Plewrophylium 
speciosum, Celmisia vernicosa, and the subject of the foregoing description.” 
Under such circumstances the scrutiny given to the vegetation was keen 
and almost exhaustive, as evidenced by the fact that but few additions 
have been made by later explorers. The first volume of the * Flora 
Antarctica,” prepared by Hooker after his return to England, and issued 
in 1844, is confined to the flora of the Auckland and Campbell Islands. 
It contains descriptions of 100 species of flowering-plants and twenty 
ferns and fern-allies, together with numerous mosses, Hepaticae, and other 
cryptogams, and is illustrated with eighty beautifully prepared plates, 
fifty-six of which are of phaenogams. Altogether, it is a splendid monu- 
ment of painstaking exploration and research, and it seems almost 
incredible that the observations and material on which it is founded 
should have been collected in less than a month. 
Alter the discovery of Victoria Land in the summer of 1840-41 
Sir James Ross returned to Tasmania, proceeding from thence to the 
Bay of Islands, which was reached on the 14th August, 1841. Here 
the expedition remained until the 23rd November. During this period 
Sir J. D. Hooker was actively engaged in collecting materials for his 
projected “Flora of New Zealand,’ receiving much assistance from 
Mr. Colenso and other residents. He remarks that his collections “con- 
tained no novelty amongst flowering-plants not known to Mr. Colenso 
and Dr. Sinclair, with whom I spent many happy days. Amongst 
cryptogamic plants I collected much that was then new. but most of 
the species have since been found elsewhere.” 
With the departure of the Antarctic Expedition in 1841 the first period 
of botanical discovery in New Zealand—that of investigation by visitors 
from abroad—may be said to have closed; for, although several scientific 
expeditions, such as the “ Novara,” ‘‘ Challenger,’ &c., have since visited 
the colony, they have done little in the way of botanical research. Since 
1841 the advance which has been made is almost wholly due to the efforts 
of the colonists themselves. | 
The foremost place among resident botanists and explorers must be 
granted to the Rev. W. Colenso, both on account of the number and 
variety of his discoveries, and the ardour with which, for a period of no 
less than sixty-five years, he continued to observe and to collect facts and 
specimens in almost all branches of natural science, always giving the 
leading place to botany. Arriving in New Zealand in 1834 he was 
induced, first by the visit of the illustrious Darwin in the “ Beagle”’ in 
1835, and later by Allan Cunningham in 1838, to take up the study of the 
botany of his adopted country, forwarding his specimens from time to 
time to Sir W. J. Hooker at Kew. At first his collections were confined 
to the district between Whangarei and the North Cape, but he soon 
enlarged his field of operations. Space will not permit of a full account 
of his many journeys, which practically covered the whole length of the 
North Island, but the following were the most important. In 1841-42 
he travelled on foot from Hicks Bay te Poverty Bay, and from thence 
inland through the rugged and almost inaccessible Urewera country to 
Lake lkaremoana, which he was the first European traveller to reach. 
He then crossed the Te Whaiti Mountains to Ruatahuna, from whence 
he proceeded to Rotorua and Tauranga. Striking inland again, he 
followed the upper Thames Valley to its head, and, crossing to the 
Waikato River, canoed a hundred miles down the river to its mouth. 
