pdf 25 MB - BSBI Archive

NOTES ON SOME PLANTS OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND. 331
vember, young, W. L. L. Resembles and represents oiir S. herbacea, L.
than which it is a somewhat larger plant. Joints about f in. long,
under i
Genus XII. Ac.*;na.*
in. broad ; seldom 2-lobed at tip.
Buchanan reports f a new species as occuning on the banks of the
* Vide also ' Contributions to New Zealand Botany,' p. 57.
+ " Sketch of the Botany of Otago " [appended to the Survey-Report of the
South-Eastem districts, by the late Alexander Garvie, C.E., District Surveyor],
by J. Buchanan, of the North-East Valley, Duuedin ; late of the Government
Survey Department, and subsequently Botanist attached to the Geological
Survey under Dr. Hector.
This 'Sketch' or 'Report' was in MSS., was not published, though an
official, and so far a pubhc document ; and perhaps was not drawn up for publication.
I had an opportunity of perusing it, while in Otago in 1861, by
favour of the officials of the Provincial Government Survey. It testified
abundantly to its author's botanical acquirements, enthusiasm, and industry,
and to the ingenuity of his views on the relations of plants to the soil on which
they grow in Otago. But he appears to have accompanied the Survey simply
as an amateur, with a view more to the acquisition of a general knowledge of
the physiognomy of the Otago flora than to making specific collections or
contributions to the said flora. He was apparently unprovided with proper
apparatus and opportunities for the preservation, or even the collection, of
plants. He tells us he was able only to pick up a few plants now and then in
the hurry of liis " march." Few of them were examined while fresh ; he
aimed in liis ' Sketch ' at giving only the generic names, and frequently not
even them. He had evidently no facilities for reference to hei'baria or publications
that might have assisted him in the determination of species. Hence
he has committed, in his said unpiiblished report, errors of a kind that could
scarcely, under the circumstances, have been avoided ; errors, however,
•which, though quite permissible and pardonable, under these circumstances,
prevent our attributing a full value to, or bestowing unhesitating confidence in,
his observations as therein recorded. It is but fair to the reputation of an excellent
NaturaHst, who has since done good service to the Botany of New Zealand,
and whose good services have been commemorated by Dr. Hooker, by the attaching
his name to not a few new species of plants, to explain that, so far as
I am aware, his essay was the first that had been written on the Botany of
the districts referred to ; that it was not published ; and that imder the whole
circumstances of its production it is not fairly open to ordinary scientific
criticism as a botanical "guide " or " Florida."
The kind of errors into which Buchanan has fallen in the "Sketch" above
alluded to, may be illustrated by the following citations :—He mentions a
Jacksonia (N. O. Leguminosce) ; an Orchis ; species of Aster, Chrysantliemum,
Hieracium, Leontodon, Sedum, etc. as occurring in Otago ; whereas the
' Handbook of the Flora of New Zealand ' records none of these gmera as being
also speaks of Laurels (N. O. Laurinew)
represented at all in New Zealand ! He
as growing in the bush on the Clutha Islets, and in other parts of the South-
Eastern districts. According to the 'Handbook,' however (p. 238), the only
representatives of the Order in New Zealand are the genera Tetranthera, Nesodaphne,
and Cassytha, which are exclusively North Island trees !
Simdar errors have been necessarily committed under similar circumstances
by other local botanists. Tims Martin describes Knightia excelsa, Br. (N. O.
Proteacece), the " Honeysuckle-tree " of Wellington— the " Rewa-rewa " of the
2 a2