Flora Novae-Zelandiae

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 Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843–45), the Flora of Fuegia, the Falkland Islands, etc (1845–47), and the Flora Tasmaniae (1853–59). They were "splendidly" illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch.[3]

Flora Novae-Zelandiae
AuthorJoseph Dalton Hooker
IllustratorWalter Hood Fitch
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMonthly parts
SubjectBotany
PublisherReeve Brothers
Publication date
1851–1853

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

Context
Main articles: Ross expedition and Flora Antarctica

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.

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.

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.

  • Volume 1 Phanerogams (355 pages, 730 species, 70 plates, 83 species figured)
  • Volume 2 Cryptogams (378 pages, 1037 species, 60 plates, 230 species figured)

Impact

David Frodin commented in 2001 that the Flora "largely completed" the "primary phase of botanical survey in the region".[6]

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. Retrieved 2015-11-28.
  3. Curtis, Winifred M. (1972). Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton (1817–1911). Australian Dictionary of Biography (Volume 4). MUP.
  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.
  5. 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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