NEW ZEALAND PLANT LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1059, 23 February 1911, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND PLANT LIFE.

SPECIMENS FOR RESEARCH AND MUSEUM PURPOSES. IBr- Telecrarh.—Special Correspondent,! Auckland, February 21.' Messrs. E. W. Sinnott ana fc. J. Barnes, two students of Harvard University, who liavo ior tne past lour or live months been making u collection ot New Zealand past and present plant lile, especially lor researcn utul museum purposes, returned last evening to Auckland ana aro now packing the fiual cases of specimens preparatory to leaving for ,Australia.

Mr. Sinnott, in the course of a talk with apressman to-day, said that so tar as fossilised plant's were concerned Curio Day, Southland,' had yicldeu tiicin perhaps tho richest harvest, but throughout tlio length and breadth of tho country they had found a great deal of interesting material with which to cnrich the knowledge in America of New Zealand plnut lite. Their quest has not been along vho well-defined tourist routes, but' prosecuted as the finger of promise beckoned them. What struck tho botanists in regard to tho flora of New Zealand was tho comparative similarity between that of the north and south. There is not the divergence in tho growth over tho thousand miles of latitude in this country that would for instanco be found in America. Down in the south, in latitude '18deg., one found a class of vegetation that belonged to quite a different clime to that which would bo found on the'l2nd degree of latitude in America. This is largely accountcd for hv tlio fact that Now Zealand is surrounded by water and does not therefore suffer the extreme in climate, but it strikes tho travellers with some force after studying the forms of vegetation hi their own country. Tho many families of plants that have apparently developed in this country quite apart from the outside world have afforded absorbing matter of interest to the young collectors, and they look forward to a particularly interesting limo after their' return when tho scientific part, oftheir work will really begin. Mr. Sinnott is of opinion that tho flora of Australasia generally bears in some respects n familiar semblance to that of the southern portion of South America, but ho declined to enter into theories on the sublet, scientific opinion being still too various on the question of a possible remote connection between the two lands for him to hazard that Hie ean*e lay in tho now sunken bottom of tho Pacific Ocean. Mr.ssr«. Sinnott and Eaines have also collected a big variety of seeds and bulbs, in addition lo « large number of coal specimens. On Monday they depart for Australia where they will nut in sevrrnl more weeks in tho different States, their nrescnl intention being lo leave FromanHe on their way homo about the end of Apr' l - ,