HISTORY OF BOTANICAL DISCOVERY IN NEW ZEALAND 
FROM 1905 TO 1924. 
(By W. R. B. Ontver.) 
MANny investigators have contributed to the literature dealing with the 
flora of New Zealand since the publication of the first edition of the Manual. 
Progress has been made mainly along three lines: firstly, systematic botany, 
including the description of new species and the recording of the distribu- 
tion of native plants; secondly, ecological botany, or the deseription of 
vegetation and the relations between plants and their environment ; and, 
thirdly, plant anatomy, or the description of the minute structure of New 
Zealand plants. In addition to these several papers have been published 
on the origin of species in New Zealand, the chemical characteristics 
of the native flora, and on naturalized plants, The work of the past 
twenty years may conveniently be reviewed under these headings. 
SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 
In his account of the botanical discovery published in the first edition 
of this Manual Mr. Cheeseman modestly passes over his own work with the 
remark that it had then extended over a period of about thirty-five years 
and included an examination of almost the whole of the Dominion. 
Mr. Cheeseman’s writings at the time of his death extended over a 
period of fifty-one years, during which time about one hundred contribu- 
tions, inainly to botanical subjects, were published under his name. Under 
the circumstances in which the present edition of the Manual is issued I 
have thought it would be fitting to publish a complete list of his works, 
so have appended a classified bibhography following this account. 
While Mr. Cheeseman was preparing the first edition of his work he 
suspended publication of smaller papers. In 1907 he began a series of articles, 
entitled “Contributions to a Fuller Knowledge of the Flora of New Zea- 
land,” and mainly supplementing the information given in the Manual. 
Simultaneously he published a number of smaller papers containing descrip- 
tions of new species. His main contribution, however, after the appear- 
ance of the first edition of the Manual was the quarto work in two volumes, 
“Tllustrations of the New Zealand Flora,” containing 250 plates with 
letterpress. The latter was written by Mr. Cheeseman. The plates were 
drawn by Miss Matilda Smith of the Kew Herbarium, while Mr, W. B. 
Hemsley supervised such portion of the work as was done in England. Two 
other important contributions from Mr, Cheeseman that have appeared 
within the last twenty years are the botany of the islands to the south of 
New Zealand, published in the ‘‘ Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand,” 
issued by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury in 1909, and an account 
of the fora of Macquarie Island, published in the “ Reports of the Austral- 
asian Antarctic Expedition ”’ in 1919. 
Altogether Mr. Cheeseman’s works on New Zealand systematic botany, 
as may be judged from the list appended, occupy one of the foremost posi- 
tions in the literature of New Zealand plants, while the present edition 
of the Manual will long remain the standard work on the flora, 
