Flora Novae-Zelandiae

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Flora Novae-Zelandiae
Author Joseph Dalton Hooker
Illustrator Walter Hood Fitch
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMonthly parts
Subject Botany
Publisher Reeve Brothers
Publication date
1851–1853

The Flora Novae-Zelandiae is a description of the plants discovered in New Zealand during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1853 and 1855. [1] Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon. [2] It was the third in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica , the others being the Botany of Lord Auckland's Group and Campbell's Island (1843–45), the Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. (1845–1847), and the Flora Tasmaniae (1853–1859). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch. [3]

Contents

The larger part of the plant specimens collected during the Ross expedition are now part of the Kew Herbarium. [4]

Context

The British government fitted out an expedition led by James Clark Ross to investigate magnetism and marine geography in high southern latitudes, which sailed with two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus on 29 September 1839 from Chatham. [5]

The ships arrived, after several stops, at the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1840. On 21 April the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera was found off Marion Island, but no landfall could be made there or on the Crozet Islands due to the harsh winds. On 12 May the ships anchored at Christmas Harbour for two and a half months, during which all the plant species previously encountered by James Cook on the Kerguelen Islands were collected. On 16 August they reached the River Derwent, remaining in Tasmania until 12 November. A week later the flotilla stopped at Lord Auckland's Islands and Campbell's Island for the spring months. [5]

Large floating forests of Macrocystis and Durvillaea were found until the ships ran into icebergs at latitude 61° S. Pack-ice was met at 68° S and longitude 175°. During this part of the voyage Victoria Land, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror were discovered. After returning to Tasmania for three months, the flotilla went via Sydney to the Bay of Islands, and stayed for three months in New Zealand to collect plants there. After visiting other islands, the ships returned to the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1843. At the end of the journey specimens of some fifteen hundred plant species had been collected and preserved. [5]

Book

Flora Novae-Zelandiae was published between 1851 and 1853.

The book begins with an introductory essay which begins by summarizing the history of botanical research of the islands. Hooker singles out the work of Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain Cook's first voyage in 1769, also mentioning Cook's second voyage and, 20 years later, the explorations of the French survey ship Coquille and the plant collector D'Urville. Hooker notes that the fungi of the islands remained largely unknown. The next chapter of the essay, on plant biogeography and evolution, is entitled "On the limits of species; their dispersion and variation"; Hooker discusses how plant species may have originated, and notes how much more they vary than was often supposed. The third chapter of the essay considers the "affinities" (relationships) of the New Zealand flora to other floras.

The flora proper begins with a short introduction explaining the book's approach; as with the other volumes, the bulk of the text is a systematic account of the families and species found by the expedition.

Impact

David Frodin commented in 2001 that J. D. Hooker was the first to study the sub-Antarctic Campbell Island and the Auckland group, and that the Flora "largely completed" the "primary phase of botanical survey in the [New Zealand] region". [6]

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The Flora Tasmaniae is a description of the plants discovered in Tasmania during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1855 and 1860. Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon. Written in two volumes, it was the last in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Botany of Lord Auckland's Group and Campbell's Island (1843–1845), the Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. (1845-47), and the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–1853). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.

The Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. is a description of the plants discovered in these islands during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1845 and 1847. Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon. It was the second in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843-1845), the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–1853), and the Flora Tasmaniae (1853–1859). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.

<i>Botany of Lord Aucklands Group and Campbells Island</i>

The Botany of Lord Auckland's Group and Campbell's Island is a description of the plants discovered in those islands during the Ross expedition written by Joseph Dalton Hooker and published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1844 and 1845. Hooker sailed on HMS Erebus as assistant surgeon. It was the first in a series of four Floras in the Flora Antarctica, the others being the Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. (1845–1847), the Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–1853), and the Flora Tasmaniae (1853–1859). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.

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<i>Myosotis capitata</i> Species of flowering plant

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Puccinellia stricta is a species of grass known by the common names Australian saltmarsh grass, and Marshgrass. It was first described by Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1853 as Glyceria stricta from a specimen collected at Akaroa, but was assigned to the genus, Puccinellia, in 1930 by Carl Hilding Blom. It is native to New Zealand and Australia, where it is found in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

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References

  1. ↑ Joseph Dalton Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae - The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843. London: Reeve Brothers.
  2. ↑ "The Erebus voyage". Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Archived from the original on 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
  3. ↑ Curtis, Winifred M. (1972). Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton (1817–1911). Australian Dictionary of Biography (Volume 4). Melbourne University Press.
  4. ↑ David Goyder; Pat Griggs; Mark Nesbitt; Lynn Parker; Kiri Ross-Jones (2012). "Sir Joseph Hooker's Collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" (PDF). Curtis's Botanical Magazine. 29 (1): 66–85. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8748.2012.01772.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-08. Retrieved 2016-02-29.
  5. 1 2 3 J.D. Hooker (1844). Flora Antarctica, Volume 1, Parts 1-2, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. pp. v–vii.
  6. ↑ Frodin, David G. (14 June 2001). Guide to Standard Floras of the World: An Annotated, Geographically Arranged Systematic Bibliography of the Principal Floras, Enumerations, Checklists and Chorological Atlases of Different Areas. Cambridge University Press. p. 385. ISBN   978-1-139-42865-1.
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