Introductory essay to the Flora of New Zealand; Published under the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of the Admirality

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 Excerpt: ...plants of the Antaretic islands, which are equally natives of New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia, are almost invariably found only on the lofty mountains of these countries. Now as not only individual species, but groups of these, whether orders, genera, or their subdivisions, are to a great degree distributed within certain limits or areas, it follows that the flora of every island or arehipelago presents peculiarities of its own. Though an insular climate may favour the relative abundance of individuals, and even species of certain Natural Orders, there is nothing in the climate, or in any other attribute of insularity, which indicates the nature of the peculiarity of endemic species. The islands of each ocean contain certain botanically alhed forms in common, which are more or less abundant in them, and rarely or never found on the neighbouring continents; thus there are curious genera peculiar to the North Atlantic islands, others to the North Pacific islands, others to those of the South Pacific, and others again to the Malayan Arehipelago; just as there are still others peculiar to the Antaretic islands, and many to New Zealand, Fuegia, and Tasmania. Each group of islands hence forms a botanical region, more or less definable by its plants as well as by its oceanic boundaries; precisely as a continuous area like Australia or South Africa does. There is however this difference, that whereas the Natural Orders that give a botanical character to a continuous area of a continent or to a large island (as the Proteacece in South Africa or in New Holland, and Coprosma in New Zealand) are numerous in species and often uniformly spread,--hi clusters of small islands, distant from continents, they are few in species, and the individuals are scattered, appeari...