BOTANICAL DISCOVERY. XX1X 
which may be mentioned Ranunculus Buchanani, Pachycladon novae-zea 
landiae, Hectorella caespitosa, Azorella exiqua, Celmisia ramulosa, Veronica 
Buchanani, &c. In 1865 Mr. Buchanan prepared his “Sketch of the 
Botany of Otago,” the first local Flora issued in the colony, and a work 
of considerable merit, evidencing much industrious research. It was written 
at the request of the Commissioners of the New Zealand Exhibition of 1865, 
but was not actually published until 1869, when it appeared in the first 
volume of the “ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.” On the 
establishment of the Geological Survey of New Zealand in 1866 he was 
appointed draughtsman and botanist, and removed to Wellington. He 
was successively engaged in botanical explorations of the North. Auckland 
Peninsula, the Kaikoura Mountains, and Mount Egmont, some interesting 
notes on the two last-mentioned districts being printed in vol. x of the 
‘Journal of the Linnean Suciety.”” In 1873 he published a valuable paper 
on the dora of the Wellington Provincial District ; followed in 1874 bv his 
“ Flowering-plants and Ferns of the Chatham Islands,” based on the 
collections made by Mr. H. H. Travers in 1863 and 1871. His most 
important work, published in 1880, is the “ Indigenous Grasses of New 
Zealand,” a folio volume of nearly two hundred pages, illustrated with 
sixty-four lithographic plates. It contains descriptions of the whole 
of the species then known to inhabit New Zealand, together with notes 
on their economic value, distribution, &c. Mr. Buchanan’s contributions 
to New Zealand botany include forty separate papers, stretching 
through twenty volumes of the “‘ Transactions of the New Zealand 
Institute.” His last communication appeared in 1887, after which per- 
sistent ill health compelled him to give up botanical work. His death took 
place in 1898. His earlier collections were mostly forwarded to Kew, but 
in later years he formed an extensive herbarium for the Colonial Museum. 
His private collections, drawings and analyses, manuscript notes, <&e., 
were bequeathed to the Otago University Museum. 
No account of the history of botanical discovery in New Zealand would 
be complete without reference to the labours of Sir James Hector, the 
first Director of the Geological Survey and Manager of the New Zealand 
Institute. Arriving in the colony in 1861, his first duty was a geological 
and topographical exploration of the Province of Otago, a work which at 
that time involved many difficulties and hardships, and no small amount 
of danger. As previously mentioned, he obtained the services of Mr. 
Buchanan as collector and artist; but his own share in the work of 
botanical exploration was by no means small. That he fully grasped the 
leading features of plant-distribution in the South Island is evidenced by 
his essay “On the Geographical Botany of New Zealand,” printed in the 
first volume of the ‘“‘ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.” After 
his removal to Wellington in 1866 the official duties appertaining to the 
Geological Survey and Colonial Museum, &c., left little time for botanical 
research ; but he has never missed an opportunity of promoting the efforts 
of others. In fact, it can be said that from the time of his arrival in the 
colony up to the present day no attempt has been made to investigate its 
flora which has not had his: countenance and support. His services to 
botanical science are fitly commemorated in the remarkable endemic genus 
Hectorella, and in the magnificent Senecio Hectort, one of the finest of the 
arborescent Compositae of the colony. 
In 1863 Mr. H. H. Travers visited the Chatham Islands for the purpose 
of investigating its flora, at that time only known from a few plants collected 
