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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

[introduction]

The classification adopted in this work is that followed by Hooker and Bentham in their well-known "Genera Plantarum," published between the years 1862 and 1883. It is also the arrangement adopted in the "Flora of New Zealand," the "Handbook," in Bentham's "Flora Australiensis," and in the whole of the series of colonial Floras prepared under the more or less active guidance of the authorities at Kew. Its principal defect is in the sequence of the orders of Dicotyledons, which is made to depend entirely on the characters afforded by the perianth; the poly-petalous orders being followed by the gamopetalous, and these in their turn by the various. orders in which the floral envelopes are-more or less reduced or altogether wanting. But this last group, known as the Monochlamydeæ, or Incomplete, consists largely of orders presenting well-marked affinities with others in the Poly-petalous or Gamopetalous divisions. Hence by recent authors, and notably by Engler in "Die Naturlichen Pfianzenfamilien,"' the Monochlamydeous division has been entirely abandoned, the orders composing it being relegated in part to the Polypetalæ and in part to the Gamopetalce. As Engler's classification is now largely used, I have appended to the following synopsis a sketch showing how the orders of New Zealand plants are arranged under it.