The indigenous vegetation of New Zealand is of considerable interest and beauty. It is unusual because of the large number of endemic species it contains and for the great variety of habitats in which they are found. Differences in climatic conditions, in altitude, and in type of soil are met with in a space of a few miles, and these factors have produced plant associations different from those in other parts of the world. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the first botanists to reach these shores, to the interests in plants shown by early missionaries, ships' surgeons, surveyors, and geologists, it was not long before a great many New Zealand plants had been collected and accurately described. Further, a remarkable herbarium consisting of specimens which had been sent to England was established at Kew Gardens, London.
The story of botanical exploration in New Zealand begins with Captain Cook who had with him in the Endeavour a number of scientists. Among these was Joseph Banks who, accompanied by his assistant, Daniel Solander, went ashore at every opportunity to collect plants. Although they were seldom able to penetrate more than 2 to 3 miles from the coast, they found a great variety of coastal plants quite new to them. With enthusiasm they worked long hours sorting and preserving specimens, and making drawings and precise descriptions of the 350 plants they had collected. Their specimens came from Queen Charlotte Sound, Poverty Bay, Tolaga Bay, Mercury Bay, and Bay of Islands, and were from varied habitats along the coastline: sandy beaches, salty estuaries, and rocky headlands exposed to winds. The collection included plants such as grass tree (Dracophyllum squarrosum), puriri, pohutukawa, mangrove, and silver tree fern (Cyathea dealbata), Phormium tenax, Astelias, Senecios, karaka, and many endemic species. Though Banks and Solander wrote full descriptions of the 350 plants they collected, their work was never published, but is now in the British Museum in manuscript form as Primitive Florae Novae Zelandiae. A typed copy is in the Auckland Museum and a photostat copy is in the Dominion Museum, Wellington.
Banks wished to accompany Cook on his second voyage, again at his own expense, but there were difficulties with the Admiralty, and finally he helped J. R. Forster and his son George to make the voyage. At Dusky Sound these men collected Celmisias (2), Gentians (2), Dracophyllums (2), Nothopanax simplex, and the southern rata (Metrosideros umbellata), and at Queen Charlotte Sound they found rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), manuka(Leptospermum scoparium), Olearias, Hebe, and Carmichaelias. On all his voyages Cook looked for green plants to supplement the diet of his crew. He collected large quantities of Apium prostratum (celery) which was used in various ways, Lepidium oleraceum (known as Cook's scurvy grass), Tetragonia expansa (New Zealand spinach) which he served as a salad, and “tea tree” from which he brewed a drink. Largely as a result of these measures the dread scourge of scurvy was held in check.
Joseph Dalton Hooker was surgeon and botanist with the Antarctic expedition of 1839, in the course of which he met Colenso at the Bay of Islands. A lasting friendship between these two men was largely responsible for our early knowledge of indigenous plants. They made many excursions together during the three months Hooker spent in New Zealand; on some of these journeys they were accompanied by Andrew Sinclair, another enthusiast. Hooker collected mosses, liverworts, fungi, and seaweeds as well as flowering plants, previously collected by others, and Colenso continued to send to him further specimens during the 50 years these two men corresponded. Hooker succeeded his father as Director of Kew Gardens, and published a Handbook of New Zealand Flora, part of his large six-volume Handbook of Flora.
Another well-known botanist-explorer of the pioneering era was Ernst Dieffenbach who had come to New Zealand in 1839 as ship's surgeon on the Tory. Later, he joined a party of surveyors from the Cuba which explored the Heretaunga Valley where he collected many plants. He was particularly interested in conifers and wrote much on the value of our forests. He climbed Mt. Egmont, travelled through the Taupo area and, further north, saw a kauri forest which was burning. He urged that strict measures be taken to prevent destruction of native trees, even for clearing farmlands. But the most famous collector of the period was William Colenso who came to New Zealand in 1834 as a missionary printer and later entered the church. He was keenly interested in the new country, the Maoris, and their language and customs, but after the visit of Darwin to the Bay of Islands in 1835, his interest in plants greatly increased. He visited many parts of the North Island collecting and observing plants, and was delighted when he first saw a profusion of alpine flowers on the Ruahines. Though he sent specimens to Kew, he also kept some which are now in the Dominion Museum, Wellington.
Still another example of the surgeon cum botanist was Andrew Sinclair who, after a few trips as ship's surgeon, accepted the position of Colonial Secretary offered him by Governor FitzRoy. Eleven years later he retired from office and left for England. But he was soon back and his last venture was an exploratory trip to the Southern Alps with Haast, in the course of which he was drowned in the Rangitata, near the Mesopotamia sheep station. Sinclair contributed much to our knowledge of alpine plants. Similar interests were shown by David Monro. Trained in medicine at Edinburgh, he arrived in New Zealand in the early forties and bought land at Nelson on which he ran sheep. Although politics soon became his main concern (he was Speaker of the House of Representatives for almost a decade), he was the first to explore the vegetation of the northern part of the Southern Alps, and sent alpine plants he collected to Hooker who included them in his New Zealand Flora. Monro's paper on Geographical Botany of Nelson and Marlborough (1865) was the result of careful observation, and three species he discovered were named after him. Lyall was another ship's surgeon whose name is honoured in such plants as Gaya lyallii, Ranunculus lyallii, Olearia lyallii, and a group of Lyallia. He was particularly interested in the lower groups of plants of which he made important collections, and his name was also given to a lichen.
Two other names associated with this early period deserve mention–Travers and Bidwill. W. T. L. Travers, a Resident Magistrate, and his son Henry were early explorers of the Nelson and West Coast districts. Travers was the first white man to pass through the Wairau Gorge and explore the Spenser Mountains and with his son made several botanical expeditions to the Tararuas. Henry also made extensive explorations of the Chatham Islands and brought back many new species, including the giant forget-me-not (Myosotidium nobile). Travers, like many others of his day, was interested in discovering a method whereby fibres of Phormium tenax could be used in the manufacture of cloth, but the results were disappointing. John Carne Bidwill, while acting as representative for his father's firm of merchants, spent most of his short life investigating plants, his enthusiasm even taking him into the territory of Te Heuheu II (Mananui) at Taupo where he climbed the “tapu” peak of the volcano Ngauruhoe then called Tongariro. On this trip he made the first collection of alpine plants to be sent to Kew, including the fascinating little plant later named Forstera bidwillii, in honour of two great botanists. He found kahikatea with masses of scarlet and black berries, which he enjoyed as food. He also collected plants from the Wanganui district and, on a later visit, spent much time in the Nelson area from which he sent a large collection of alpine plants to Hooker.
New Zealand was fortunate in numbering among its early surveyors and geologists men such as Julius von Haast and James Hector, the latter also having qualified in medicine. In 1858 an Austrian frigate visited Auckland, and on board was an eminent geologist, Hochstetter. The Auckland Provincial Government asked him to stay for six months to report on the geology, natural history, geography, and, in particular, the coalfields of the district. Just at that time Julius von Haast arrived and joined the party of exploration. They made an extensive study of the Taupo district, then spent two months in Nelson. After Hochstetter returned to Austria, Haast spent another nine months in Nelson, Canterbury, and Westland, finding coal and gold, as well as many new plants. Haast then became Provincial Geologist and, later, Director of the Canterbury Museum, a position which enabled him to spend much time exploring the plants of the Southern Alps. James Hector showed a similar enthusiasm for plants, and, along with the gifted draughtsman, John Buchanan, explored Central and Western Otago, then Mount Egmont and, later, the Kai-kouras. Buchanan also made an intensive study of plants, especially grasses, and his Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand was enhanced by its beautiful illustrations. Later, he wrote a Sketch of the Botany of Otago (1865).
The work of scientific investigators, which had been a feature of the sixties, was continued further by a number of gifted men. One of the most out standing was Thomas Kirk who from childhood had been keenly interested in plants. He arrived in New Zealand in 1863 and from then on found many new species, specimens of which he sent to Kew. He, too, made several tours of exploration and his concern for the future of the forest, which in certain districts was facing destruction, was shown in a paper The Utilisation of New Zealand Timbers. His Forest Flora was commissioned by the Government, but unfortunately his greater work, the Flora of New Zealand, was not completed at the time of his death (1898). Kirk's explorations extended to all parts of North and South Islands, and to Stewart Island which he was anxious to see preserved “as a timber reserve”. In many ways he was a source of inspiration to other enthusiasts, not least his son, H. B. Kirk. Kirk's place among the early botanists of this country is shown in the tribute paid him by Cockayne and Phillips Turner who dedicated their book Trees of New Zealand “to the honoured memory of Thomas Kirk, the author of the classical Forest Flora, and for three decades the leader of botanical inquiry in the Colony”.
In Otago at this time was G. M. Thomson, first farmer, then science teacher at Otago Boys' High School, who was an ardent naturalist as was proved by his A New Zealand Naturalist's Calendar. Like Kirk, he noted the drastic consequences of a reckless clearing of the forest cover and issued a warning on the danger of erosion.
Thomson's investigations at Otago were paralleled in greater degree in the north by Thomas Frederic Cheeseman who, from the time of his arrival in New Zealand in 1854 at the age of eight, succumbed to the fascination of plant collecting. After a term of schooling he helped his father on a farm, meanwhile continuing his botanical interests. Inspired by the publication of Darwin's Fertilisation of Orchids, he found the native Pterostylis, a fascinating green-hooded orchid, and watched the visits of insects to this flower. He studied also the method of pollination of rewarewa, Knightia excelsa. He corresponded with botanists in Europe and America, and sent an account of his work on orchids to Hooker at Kew. This reached Darwin who included it in a later edition of his book. Cheeseman formed a field club, and with other enthusiasts tramped over the country surrounding Auckland. In 1887 he thoroughly explored the vegetation of Raoul in the Kermadec Islands and the Three Kings Group. In 1895, with Adams, he explored the far north, on foot, a packhorse carrying collecting material and other gear. He found many small plants, including the tiny colourless parasite dodder (Cassytha paniculata). After a trip through the central volcanic region, Cheeseman visited Mount Cook. In 1896 he was able to visit Cook Islands and spent three months at Rarotonga, where he was a pioneer in the field, and published a full description of the plants. During many of his expeditions Cheeseman was accompanied by his wife. He kept his herbarium, which included specimens of all plants described in his Manual of New Zealand Flora, in special cabinets of kauri in his own home. These are now in the Auckland Museum. For his meticulous work he received world-wide recognition, was elected a member of the Linnean Society, and later received the rare award of the gold medal of that society.
Pioneer botanists like Hooker expanded their work from mere descriptions of plants to considerations of their geographical distribution. Leonard Cockayne went further and emphasised the importance of geographical factors on plant life, together with the relationship of plants to those others among which they grew. He noted the climate, the type of soil, the presence of animals, and any other consideration which might affect the growth of plants. This was a new approach and Cockayne rightly won a reputation as being the first great ecologist of the country.
A few years after his arrival, Cockayne bought 4 acres of land at New Brighton, Christchurch, where he established a garden. Every year, for 12 years, he exchanged hundreds of plants and seeds with people in all parts of the world. Then he became interested in growth regeneration after forest and tussock fires, in the vegetation of the outlying islands, and in the two distinct types of vegetation on the eastern and western slopes of the Southern Alps. For the Department of Lands and Survey he made a series of surveys of plant associations including coastal vegetation, the sand dunes, the reserves at Kapiti, Tongariro National Park, and Stewart Island. For the Department of Agriculture he explored Central Otago, especially those dry areas where vegetation had been depleted by overstocking, rabbits, and burning. When Cockayne later came to live at Wellington, he made a garden at Wilton in which he established plants from many parts of the country, carefully labelling and recording all facts of the locality from which they came and of their growth. The garden has now become a wonderful open-air musem – Otari – under the control of the Wellington City Council. In this reserve lie the graves of Cockayne and his wife amid the native plants he loved so well.
Such in brief is the story of the pioneer botanist-explorers who in the span of a few decades gave New Zealand a comprehensive picture of its indigenous and unique flora.
by Olive Rita Croker, M.A., Botanist, Wellington.