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