English Botanist To Investigate N.Z. Flora

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28162, 28 December 1956, Page 9

English Botanist To Investigate N.Z. Flora

In the course of a study of the relationships of plant life in land masses in the southern hemisphere a plant geographer, Professor R. D’O. Good, professor of botany at the University of Hull, Yorkshire, arrived in Christchurch yesterday afternoon from Sydney.

Whereas in the northern hemisphere there is a more or less continuous belt of land round the Pole—through Europe, Asia and America—the position in the southern hemisphere is reversed and there is a huge continuous ocean with land masses scattered in it,” said Professor Good, explaining the purpose of his visit and studies. “The plant life of these different land masses differs, and the great problem is to find out what the history of that vegetation has been. “It is, for example, a question of unravelling the relationships between plant life in, say, Australia and South Africa or New Zealand and South America. . . .

These problems involve the whole history of the geography of the earth’s surface.”

Professor Good said his studies were a continuation of the work involved in preparing two books he had written —“The Geography of the Flowering Plants” and “Features of Evolution in the Flowering Plants.” “It is a purely academic study,” he said, “but you never know when you may turn up a connexion that might be practical. “I think it is fair to say that Neyy Zealand flora are some of the most interesting in the world and without close parallel elsewhere,” said Professor Good.

“They have relationships with flora in many other lands, but characteristics of their own.” He will remain in New Zealand until the beginning of February. Next month he will give a paper at the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science in Dunedin. Before coming to New Zealand, Professor Good visited Ceylon, Singapore, New Caledonia, New Guinea, and Australia. New Guinea, he said, had one of the richest plant populations in the world. There were more plants in that region than in almost any other area of similar size. New Guinea’s flora were also interesting because they were still so much unexplored. “There are great differences between the flora of New Guinea and Australia, and that is one of the great problems which still awaits solution,” he said. New Caledonia was interesting in a similar way, and also because it was almost midway between New Guinea and New Zealand.