Cataloguing the new world: Colenso’s Glossarium Botanicum: Novae Zelandiae

ABSTRACT

The unpublished Glossarium Botanicum: Novae Zelandiae, begun in 1838 by William Colenso, is the oldest extant manuscript by a resident New Zealand botanist. It was begun at a time when the Florae Insularum Novae Zelandiae Precursor of Allan Cunningham was in the process of being published, and when Cunningham and Colenso were botanising together in Northland. This article discusses the relationships between Colenso’s and Cunningham’s works. It is argued that Colenso modelled the manuscript on a notebook which Cunningham had with him in 1838, adding more information in 1841 when he obtained a copy of Cunningham’s paper. Material from Colenso’s East Coast journey was added either in 1842 or possibly later. An appendix identifies previously unrecorded Colenso localities from the Glossarium. A second appendix identifies approximate dates for the various published papers resulting from his East Coast journey.

KEYWORDS:

• Allan Cunningham
• botanical history
• manuscript
• New Zealand
• William Colenso

Introduction

The Rev. William Colenso FRS, FLS (1811–1899) was one of the most important figures in nineteenth century New Zealand science, with extremely significant contributions in botany, zoology, history, anthropology and philology (Bagnall & Petersen 1948; Andrews 1986; St. George 2009). After his arrival in New Zealand in 1834, his occupation as a missionary enabled him to travel widely through areas unexplored by other scientific observers. One of the few amateur naturalists to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (in 1886), he was the first botanist to gain that distinction while resident in New Zealand (Clark & Kelly 1994).

It appears that, in 1838, very soon after he began to seriously study the natural history of his new country, Colenso decided to make a checklist of the plants then known from New Zealand. The resulting manuscript was titled by Colenso Glossarium Botanicum: Novae Zelandiae (hereafter Glossarium). The format suggests that Colenso created it purely for his own use as a reference, rather than intending it to be eventually printed. The need for it arose because, at that time, there was no synopsis of the New Zealand flora available to him; the only existing one, that of Richard (1832), being difficult for him to obtain.

Although many of Colenso’s papers were destroyed after his death, the Glossarium remained, perhaps masquerading as a book. It is the only substantial extant manuscript by a resident from the earliest days of New Zealand botany, before the country came under British sovereignty.

The physical manuscript is now held by the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (call number MLMSS 3109). Perhaps for this reason, it has not hitherto attracted attention from New Zealand researchers, although a microfilmed copy is available at the National Library of New Zealand. By permission of the State Library of New South Wales, a transcript of the Glossarium in PDF format is available as a supplementary file with this article.

The most striking feature of the contents is the close relationship with the contemporary work of Allan Cunningham titled Florae Insularum Novae Zelandiae Precursor (hereafter Precursor), published serially (and partly posthumously) between 1837–1839 (Cunningham 1837, 1838a, 1838b, 1839a, 1839b; Earp 2016).

Colenso had not seen any part of the published Precursor when creating the Glossarium, but in 1838 Cunningham spent several months in the same part of northern New Zealand where Colenso was living. It is known that the two went on plant collecting expeditions together, the last of which reputedly had eventually fatal consequences for Cunningham (St. George 2009, p. 67, 2014b). Cunningham examined Colenso’s herbarium and was largely responsible for his taking a particular interest in botany.

Cunningham evidently had with him an abbreviated form of the Precursor to assist his research, which Colenso used as the basis for his Glossarium. The resulting document sheds some light on Colenso’s early botanical publications.

For plant and animal nomenclature I follow the ICN (McNeill et al. 2012) and ICZN (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999). The names appearing in this article are those used in the Glossarium and other contemporary documents; a concordance between these and the currently accepted equivalents is in Table A3.1 (in Appendix 3).

Physical description

The Glossarium is approximately 18 cm high × 12 cm wide (about modern B6 size) × 2 cm thick when closed. It now presents as a professionally bound volume, in boards faced inside and out with dark green and orange marbled paper, with a leather headband and corner protectors (information supplied by Julie Sweeten, State Library of New South Wales, pers. comm. 2015).

However, the original cover is bound inside this. It was of thin white cardboard, covered with a dark paper jacket (now water damaged). The title is written on the jacket in an ornate script, and on those portions of the jacket folded inside there are a few scribbled notes in Colenso’s hand.

The contents are written on unlined white paper. The endpapers bear a watermark ‘Barnard’s Improved Superfine’.

One may speculate that Colenso was so fond of this early effort that he had it properly bound later in life, and that its book-like appearance saved it from the deliberate destruction that was visited upon his other early papers after his death (Bagnall & Petersen 1948, p. 448).

The manuscript pages are numbered according to two systems. One, in ink, is in Colenso’s handwriting, and commences with the first page of the checklist of plants, omitting several pages at beginning and end. The page numbers, if present, are written at top left of the verso and top right of the recto. This pagination may be summarised as [3], 1–117, [2], 118–146, [1] (not counting the original covers and slip of paper bound in before the title page).

The second numbering system is pencilled in a different hand, odd page numbers at top right of the recto only. The original cover counts as page 1, and the count goes to the last recto, numbered 159. A slip of paper bound before page 3 is numbered 3a. This pagination would appear to be the work of someone collating the manuscript. It may be summarised as 1–2, 3a, [1], 3–159, [1], which includes both sides of the front cover, two interpolated leaves, and the back cover.

Codicology

The principal language is English. There are a few phrases in Latin.

Colenso’s writing is usually quite legible. No words in this manuscript were unable to be deciphered. There are a few orthographic errors (e.g. ‘Elatosemma’ for ‘Elatostema’). Some of these (e.g. ‘pinieleoides’ for ‘pimeleoides’) may be the result of Colenso misreading Cunningham’s handwriting, which is not the most legible.

Ligatures ‘æ’ and ‘œ’ are used throughout. When writing ‘the’ and ‘this’, Colenso used a glyph similar to ‘y’ (for the letter ‘thorn’), and where ‘ss’ appears, the first letter is the long s ‘∫’ (Figure 1). Colenso used a printer’s section mark (‘§’) with the names of sections of a large family such as the Compositae.

Figure 1. Samples of Colenso’s handwriting from the Glossarium. A, The word ‘the’ using the letter ‘thorn’; B, the word ‘mass’ showing the long ‘s’; C, a section mark ‘§’; D, the single flowing glyph which Colenso almost invariably used for his initials; E, part of the two entries for Asplenium hookerianum and A. colensoi, showing the anomalous writing, and the correction of ‘colensii’ to ‘colensoi’.

One mark whose meaning is uncertain is the Greek letter μ appearing after several descriptive notes; perhaps indicating it is Colenso’s own observation (i.e. standing for mine/mihi).

Contents

The folded-in part of the original jacket has some notes jotted down: a few Latin to English equivalents of specific names, apparently for plants now in Veronica section Hebe, and a note of some plants seen in December 1839.

There are three pages of notes at the beginning of the manuscript proper, either undated or dated from 1839 to 1841. One of the pages is an undated list of plants ‘to Hooker’. This list is a shorter version of one in a letter dated 20 July 1841 (in St. George 2009, p. 149) accompanying specimens sent to W.J. Hooker.

Another note, of the circumference of a large Fuchsia excorticata seen in December 1840, was copied into the same letter, but not published by Hooker. It appeared in some versions of Colenso’s journal of his East Coast expedition (Colenso 1845b, p. 306; Colenso 1847, p. 92).

There is also the only mention of a non-plant species, Pholas, a bivalve which bores into soft intertidal rocks, seen at Waiheke (probably Pholas similis Gray in Yate 1835, pp. 309–310).

The greater part of the manuscript consists of the checklist of plants. Most of the pages in this section have manually ruled vertical columns, three to each page, with the leftmost usually containing the ordinal number for the entry. Each entry spans two pages, with Māori name and locality on the verso, corresponding botanical name and authority on the recto, and evidently meant to be read with the book opened flat. Relatively few species have brief descriptions in one or other of the columns; the majority do not.

A large amount of space at the end of each group of entries (genus or family) and numerous blank pages probably indicate that it was Colenso’s intention to keep updating the checklist. Such updates are easily identified by not having ordinal numbers, and usually by being written in a slightly less careful style of calligraphy and/or with different ink.

Many of the entries are checked with a tick, and in many cases the ticks are crossed. It has not been possible to determine what these marks represent; there does not seem to be any correspondence between those species seen by Colenso and those checked.

At the end of the Glossarium there are six pages of undated notes (‘mems’) on plant identification and taxonomy, a two page index to families in the checklist (using Colenso’s pagination, ordered by initial letter only), one more page of notes dated from 1839 to 1841, and finally a page of undated notes on plants having Māori or Latin names but for which identification was needed.

There are two leaves of different sizes bound into the sequence. The first, its recto numbered 3a in the collator’s pagination, is only a strip about 4 cm high × 7 cm, torn off a scrap sheet that had previously been used to jot down sums of money and odd words in English and Māori oriented randomly. Its purpose is to hold the epigraph ‘whatever God himself has pleased to think worthy of his making, its fell[o]w. Creature man sho[ul]d. not think unworthy of his knowing’ (Boyle 1663, p. 18). Such moral quotations often appeared standalone in magazines, for example The Saturday Magazine of 10 February 1838, p. 53.

The other interpolated leaf is more substantial, about 17 cm high × 10.5 cm, written only on the recto, which was unnumbered by Colenso, but numbered 125 in the collator’s system. The text consists of descriptions of Pennantia corymbosa and Carpodetus serratus extracted from Miller & Martyn (1807).

There is also a small (4 cm high × 11.5 cm) unnumbered loose piece of paper, resembling one of Colenso’s herbarium slips, and probably used as a page marker, with merely the words ‘Laurus Tarairi A[llan]. C[unningham]’.

There are a number of blank pages (except for numbering). For example: four pages separating the dicotyledons and mosses approximately halfway through the work; and the versos facing the pages of liverworts (all of which, as in the Precursor, are without localities).

Dates of composition

The commencement seems obvious. The title page bears the date 1838 in Roman numerals, and the numbered entries in the checklist correspond to species known at that date. These entries were probably written in a single burst of activity, as they seem to be in a uniform, rather formal calligraphic style.

In the next couple of years, Colenso then used the manuscript to jot down some notes unrelated to the checklist, and to add notes (localities and plant descriptions) to the checklist. These additions are recognisably in Colenso’s handwriting, but in a less careful style.

When Colenso finally obtained a printed copy of the Precursor in 1841 he evidently added information from that. The evidence for this is further discussed below.

Then there are the additional checklist entries, some of which are certainly later than 1841. Unnumbered entries include some new species which are known to have been first collected by Colenso in his journey through the East Coast and Urewera in the summer of 1841–1842 and are therefore no earlier than 1842.

Such entries include Hymenophyllum franklinianum (collected December 1841) and Aspidium cunninghamianum (January 1842). Colenso (1843) initially published these as H. franklinae and A. cunninghamii, respectively, but in later publications the names were altered to the longer adjectival forms (Colenso 1844, 1845a, 1845b, 1847).

The first of these later publications bears the manuscript date 1 September 1842 (Colenso 1844), the others, dates in January 1843. This does not advance the earliest possible date for these additions from 1842.

One very minor correction of a single letter, discussed further below, was probably made at least 2 years later.

Possible other later dates will be discussed below where the evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to sustain a definite conclusion.

Colenso’s references

The family names of the checklist’s dicotyledons have numbers by them which are page numbers from the second edition of A Natural System of Botany (Lindley 1836). When recording some botanical terms he cites the third edition of An Introduction to Botany (Lindley 1839). These editions of both books were mentioned by Colenso in a letter to Allan Cunningham in 1839 (in St. George 2009, p. 141).

In other cases, he cites ‘Linné’ with page numbers which refer to a work published in English long after Linnaeus’ death although still attributed to him (Linné & Turton 1802, 1806). Colenso cites this work in a letter to W.J. Hooker in 1841 (St. George 2009, p. 145 specimen no. 50) yet it is not in his library list in 1842 (St. George 2009, p. 173). Possibly he worked from a copy borrowed from Cunningham or Bidwill. The obsolete term ‘hearted’ (cordate) Colenso used to describe the stipules of Urtica ferox in the Glossarium probably comes from this work, where it is frequently used.

The Glossarium also contains, as previously noted, a few extracts from a work Colenso cited as ‘Miller’s Gard[ener’s] Dict[ionar]y’. This is a set of four thick folio tomes, without page numbering but arranged alphabetically according to generic name (Miller & Martyn 1807). Although physically in four hefty volumes, the title pages only admit of two, so that Colenso’s ‘Vol. III’ is actually numbered ‘Vol. II. Part I’. The extracts are for the most part slightly abridged English translations of material originally published in Latin by the Forsters (Forster & Forster 1776; Forster 1786). The work does not appear in Colenso’s library list, nor is it mentioned elsewhere in his letters.

The Glossarium and the Precursor

Colenso’s letters to Hooker in 1840 and 1841 (in St. George 2009, pp. 142–143) show that he could not have seen any published part of Cunningham’s Precursor until W.J. Hooker sent him the complete work, which arrived in July 1841.

Nevertheless, there is a clear relationship between the Glossarium and the Precursor. Not only is the order of numbered species very similar in both cases, but characteristic phrases in Latin attached to Cunningham’s new genera Alseuosmia, Corokia and Ixerba are repeated verbatim (but without the typographic errors of the published version) in the Glossarium.

Further, many of the Northland plant localities listed in the Glossarium, which one might expect to derive from Colenso’s own experience, were obviously supplied by Cunningham (see Appendix 1). For example, no. 214 in the Glossarium, Epilobium nummulariifolium, has ‘banks Kkeri; dry situations;—also bogs’. The same species, no. 535 in the Precursor, has ‘Shores of the Kerikeri river, and in dry as well as in boggy grounds.—1834, Rich. Cunningham’ (Cunningham 1839b, p. 31). The localities given for all 18 species of Epilobium are similarly abbreviated forms of those appearing in the Precursor, except for one additional locality, Motu-o-Rangi, given by Colenso for E. rotundifolium.

The similarity between the two works can be quantified, although the statistics about to be given are only approximate, as entries cannot always be unambiguously classified.

In those sections where Colenso seems to have been most concerned with recording localities (ferns, monocotyledons, dicotyledons) there are some 349 species from Northland. About 59% have abbreviated forms of the localities appearing in the Precursor, 19% have localities which do not appear in the Precursor, 9% have a mixture of localities and for the remainder (12%) Colenso omitted any locality although one was provided in the Precursor.

The statistics with regard to Māori plant names are similar. In those sections where Colenso seems to have been most concerned with recording Māori names (gymnosperms and dicotyledons), there are some 107 species with names recorded in the Glossarium or in the Precursor as having been collected in the field by Allan or Richard Cunningham. Of these, 62% appear in both works, 10% in the Precursor only, 25% in the Glossarium only, and in three cases Colenso has recorded both a new name and that which appears in the Precursor. In all cases, Colenso has corrected the names to conform to the orthographic standard of the time for te reo Māori.

All eight measurements given for tree or shrub heights in the Glossarium entries are taken from the Precursor. For these, Colenso used the Latin term ‘pedalis’ or its abbreviation ‘p.’ even when Cunningham used ‘feet’.

Table 1 shows the numbers of species and their ordinal ranges for the two works. While the order of the groups is quite different, within each group the order of species is, with only a few exceptions, identical (see the second supplementary file for the exact correspondence).

Colenso entirely omitted the seaweeds and lichens. The difference in numbers for mosses shown in Table 1 is due to a couple being inadvertently omitted in the printed text of the Precursor, although they are present in Cunningham’s original manuscript (Earp 2016). Although the number of enumerated dicotyledons is the same, Colenso added Solanum nigrum but omitted Dracophyllum rosmarinifolium (and, in a few cases, pairs of species are swapped around). The extra entry Colenso has for the gymnosperms has no Latin name; he has merely separated the Māori names ‘mae’ and ‘matai’ which appear in the Precursor under Dacrydium mai [Prumnopitys taxifolia] into two entries, but then bracketed them as ‘one tree’.

Cunningham’s notebook

Given that Colenso could not have seen any printed copy of the Precursor until mid-1841, where did he get the information in the Glossarium if he began it in 1838?

It appears that when Cunningham came to New Zealand in 1838, he had with him a notebook in which he had jotted down the ordinal numbers, species names, and some minimal information about each plant (author, highly abbreviated localities) from his manuscript copy of the Precursor. This notebook, still preserved in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and available in Australia and New Zealand as a microfilmed copy, was apparently titled Florae Novae Zelandiae (hereafter Florae) (Cunningham 1838c).

That he started the notebook before he left England is shown by species no. 33 in the Precursor, a seaweed for which the name printed is Rhodomenia? [Rhodymenia] lusoria. The original name, which appears in Cunningham’s manuscript for the Precursor, is R. praelonga. When Cunningham left the manuscript behind with Sir William Hooker for publication (Hooker 1837), he had asked Hooker to obtain the description for this species from Robert Greville, as up until then it had only existed in a manuscript of Greville’s (Earp 2016). It appears that when Greville replied he had decided to change the name as well. The name that appears in the Florae notebook is the original manuscript version, not the one that was printed.

The Florae has a similar appearance, albeit rather less regular, to the Glossarium. The recto pages have a ruled column for the ordinal number, the rest of the line contains the species name and other information. The facing verso pages were not ruled, but were used for occasional notes. These were simply prefixed with the ordinal number and aligned with the species on the recto.

Most such notes were to do with the correct Māori name for the species, which Cunningham was at some pains to ascertain. Many of these names have initials attached, either ‘W.W.’ or, far less often, ‘W.C.’. A note on the first page, signed by Phillip Parker King, states that the first is ‘the Rev. Wm. Williams, Missy. of the Church of England in charge of the Station at Wai-mate’, and the second is ‘Wm Colenso—belonging to the Church Mission—the printer’.

Like the Glossarium, most of the Florae pages were numbered (but rectos only) with several unnumbered pages at beginning and end. These have jotted notes made in 1838 during his visit. The Florae also has an index and a list of plants for which Māori names are known but identifications are wanted. The Latin phrases from the Precursor introducing genera Alseuosmia, Corokia and Ixerba are also present.

One section which the Florae has, but which Colenso felt no need for, was a comprehensive listing of all Māori names pertaining to plants, extracted from Lee’s vocabulary (Lee & Kendall 1820). Again, this shows Cunningham’s efforts to correctly record indigenous names.

It is likely, therefore, that Colenso began the manuscript of the Glossarium in 1838 by arranging it like Cunningham’s Florae notebook but in a more organised format. However, this cannot be a simple copy from one work to another. The Florae does not contain as much of the Precursor’s locality information as the Glossarium. To continue with the example given above, the locality given in the Florae for Epilobium nummulariifolium is just ‘Keri Keri’. Nor does the Florae contain tree heights. It is probable that sometime after July 1841, when Colenso obtained a copy of the Precursor from Hooker, he went through and updated locality and other information directly from that.

Even more puzzling is the case of the fern genus Loxsoma, printed in the Precursor as Loxoma. In the Florae, it was first spelt Loxoma then corrected by inserting an above-line ‘s’. It does not appear that Cunningham knew of the correct spelling of Loxsoma until he arrived back in Sydney and received a letter from the originator of the name, Robert Brown. He communicated this in a letter to Colenso dated 24 October 1838 (in Orchard & Orchard 2015, p. 462). Yet, it is the corrected version that appears in the Glossarium without any insertion.

A possible explanation is that Colenso took rough notes, primarily a list of species, their authors and families, from the Florae notebook when Cunningham was in New Zealand, and later (evidently, no earlier than late October 1838) created his own notebook as a good copy. If Colenso was not working from the original that might explain the occasional misspelling of Latin names. Although this theory is at least compatible with the known facts, there is no direct evidence to support it.

It may be suggested, alternatively, that Colenso instead constructed the checklist entirely from the copy of the Precursor which he received in July 1841 (with the addition of the correction to Loxsoma). The evidence is against this, as there are numerous typographic errors in the Precursor which are not present in the Glossarium; and also the Precursor has a lacuna of two missing species in the bryophyte section (Earp 2016), whereas the Glossarium and the Florae both have the omitted items.

Species differences

Those species which appear in the Glossarium, but not in the Precursor, were discovered during Cunningham’s visit in 1838, or subsequently (up to 1842) by Colenso. Many were then published by Colenso, but the dates of the various publications are not always clear; Appendix 2 attempts to clarify what the true dates are.

Dicotyledons

The three species, all unnumbered because they were encountered after Cunningham’s visit, are:

Laurus Victoriana—later published as a nomen nudum (Colenso 1842, p. 301). Wright (1984) listed it as a synonym of Beilschmiedia tawa (A. Cunn.) Benth. et Hook.f. ex Kirk. However, in the Glossarium it is given a distinct Māori name (‘tawaraunui’, large-leaved tawa) and perhaps falls under Wright’s B. tawaroa, which is not currently recognised as separate from B. tawa (de Lange & Cameron 1999).

Drosera collina—an original species name peltata (which appears in the Florae) has been crossed out, as has also a locality ‘Hills Kkeri’. Instead, there is an annotation ‘common sp.’, indicating this is most likely D. auriculata. Hooker (1852–1853, p. 21) mentions D. peltata, an unpublished name of Banks and Solander, for just that species. The epithet collina is no longer available, having been published by Lowrie (2013) for an Australian species.

Xylosma orbiculata (J.R. Forst. & G. Forst.) G. Forst.—this Pacific Island species (type locality: Niue) not only has an entry in the checklist, but is also mentioned in the endnotes. In both cases the name is devoid of any further details. Colenso evidently asked Cunningham about it, in a letter which has not survived, and Cunningham replied that it had ‘Nothing to do with N. Zeald.’ (letter dated 9 January 1839, in Orchard & Orchard 2015, p. 467). The reason for Colenso’s query is not known.

It is noteworthy that several new species discovered by Colenso in his journey from the East Coast in 1841–1842 do not appear. One is Coriaria kingiana, published informally but validly (Colenso 1844, pp. 20–21). Another is Phormium forsterianum, published first as a nomen nudum (Colenso 1844, p. 8) and later informally but validly (Colenso 1851). Others collected in the same journey but not listed in the Glossarium are Alseuosmia hookeria, Coprosma arcuata, C. crassifolia, Melicytus collina and Mida undulata. These were published in portions of his journal (Colenso 1845b, 1847) which were omitted from the version published by Hooker (Colenso 1844). In fact, in Hooker’s version, Colenso explicitly stated ‘I did not observe anything new in Botany’ when speaking of the period in which he found most of these species (Colenso 1844, p. 62; cf. Colenso 1847, pp. 84–85). Of these, the Alseuosmia is a nomen nudum, and the Melicytus only informally described; the others have valid Latin diagnoses.

Ferns

Three of the extra numbered ferns, and one of those unnumbered, bear names attributed to Allan Cunningham: Gleichenia arachnoidea, Lomaria crenulata, L. gigantea and L. polymorpha. These species were published as nomina nuda by Colenso (1845a), who stated that Cunningham named them after they were collected during his 1838 visit.

Two of these species are readily identified. Gleichenia arachnoidea was given as Cunningham’s manuscript name when W.J. Hooker (1844–1846, p. 6) published the species as G. cunninghamii Heward ex Hook. Many years later, Colenso stated the original collection was by Cunningham ‘in the early spring in the dense wet woods between Te Waimate and Kaitaia’ (lecture reported in the Napier newspaper The Daily Telegraph, 11 September 1883).

In a letter to W.J. Hooker, Colenso (in St. George 2009, p. 197) complained that Lomaria polymorpha had been published as L. pimpinellifolia Hook.f. (Hooker 1844, as ‘pimpinellaefolia’, spelling corrected by ICN Art. 60.8). He stated that L. polymorpha was ‘the last plant which Cunn. discovered … [before] he caught his “death-cold”’, which was brought on, he later admitted in the lecture cited above, from being ‘benighted, with nothing to eat and no shelter’ (cf. St. George 2014b).

The other two species remain uncertain. Cunningham was evidently not aware of the previously published Malaysian species L. gigantea Kaulfuss (1824, p. 150), as the name jotted in the Florae has only ‘N[ot]. D[escribed].’ next to it. The descriptive epithet suggests it should be identified as Blechnum novae-zelandiae T.C.Chambers & P.A.Farrant, the largest New Zealand species of the genus.

There is a specimen of L. crenulata still preserved in Colenso’s herbarium at Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand (Colenso s.n. 1839, WELT P003247!), probably referable to Blechnum minus (R.Br.) Ettingsh. This is the only name of the four not to appear in the Florae, which has instead L. undulata, a more accurate description of the margins of the pinnae.

One already published species in the Glossarium, but not the Precursor, is Notholaena distans Hook., recorded by Colenso from the volcanic cone at Pouerua (the locality name appears in the Florae without any associated species). This Australian species was not recognised in New Zealand until much later (Hooker 1854–1855, p. 46).

The remainder of the new species, all unnumbered, are attributed to Colenso himself, and all except one were discovered during his journey from the East Coast in 1841–1842.

The following five species were validly published in Colenso’s first paper on ferns (Colenso 1843) as Aspidium cunninghamii, Hymenophyllum frankliniae, Lomaria deltoides, L. linearis and L. nigra. On the other hand, Lomaria rotundifolia was also published in that paper, but it is not listed in the Glossarium.

Colenso’s later invalid alteration of the first two names from the genitive forms to the adjectival forms used in the Glossarium has been noted above. These alterations are now regarded as illegitimate (see, e.g. Brownsey & Perrie 2016). They were undoubtedly based on the convention that the genitive should only be used when the person referred to had discovered or described the species, while the adjectival form should be used when this was not the case (Lindley 1839, pp. 531–532). This convention was included in the first proposed Laws of Nomenclature but it had previously been so little adhered to that, when the second set of proposals were published, it was deleted (de Candolle 1883, p. 20, remarks on former Art. 33, and footnote p. 69).

The following 25 additional species were validly published in Colenso’s second paper (Colenso 1845a): Asplenium colensoi, A. forsterianum, A. hookerianum, Aspidium pulcherrimum, A. waikarense, Cheilanthes pellucida, Davallia novae-zelandiae, Dicksonia fibrosa, D. lanata, Grammitis ciliata, Gymnogramma novae-zelandiae, Hymenophyllum atrovirens, H. imbricatum, H. pulcherrimum, H. revolutum, H. spathulatum, H. villosum, Lindsaea viridis, Lomaria deflexa, L. heterophylla, L. latifolia, Polypodium sylvaticum, P. viscidum, Pteris montana, Todea superba. The last of these was collected by Colenso in 1842, but was named by him in a letter to Hooker in 1841, based on specimens from Tongariro (presumably collected by Bidwill) (Colenso 1842). Two more species, Asplenium oblongifolium and Nephrodium pentangularum, were published in this fern paper, but are not listed in the Glossarium. The case of Asplenium colensoi is rather peculiar, and is further discussed below.

Three species are listed in the Glossarium but were not published by Colenso: Adiantum assimile, A. falcatum and Lomaria banksii. The first two of these names were, in any case, not available, having already been published by two and three authors respectively. Lomaria banksii is presumably the same as that published later by J.D. Hooker (1854–1855), but there are no details which might confirm this.

Monocotyledons

The extra entries in the Glossarium, as can be seen from Table 1, are all orchids.

Three of the five extra numbered orchid names are attributed to Colenso himself: Cyrtostylis reniformis, Pterostylis collina and an unnamed species of Caladenia. The fourth, Acianthus fornicatus, has an attribution to Allan Cunningham, meaning only that he identified a specimen with the Australian plant (the Florae states this is indeed the Robert Brown species). The fifth has no species name but is assigned to Sarcochilus with an attribution to R. Cunningham.

Colenso included specimens of all these in a shipment to W.J. Hooker on 14 February 1840 (in St. George 2009, p. 142). The collection also included two of the three unnumbered orchid entries: Thelymitra grandiflora and Thelymitra straminea. The covering letter stated that the specimens had been collected in 1838 except for that of Sarcochilus, for which the details supplied, as well as the collection date of October 1839, indicate it may not be the same specimen which prompted the entry in the Glossarium if it has to be assumed the entry dates from 1838. The third unnumbered entry is Thelymitra lineata, described only as ‘common Thel. broad leaved’.

Colenso gave Hooker a diagnosis for Pterostylis collina supplied by Cunningham ‘on my finding it in Sept. 1838, during his residence in this place’ (in St. George 2009, p. 142). He later published the name as a nomen nudum (Colenso 1845b, p. 304). This name was not taken up by Hooker, who instead named it P. trullifolia (Hooker 1852–1853, p. 249; see also St. George 2014a). Cunningham sent Colenso a diagnosis for Thelymitra grandiflora (letter dated 9 January 1839, in Orchard & Orchard 2015, p. 466) in which he definitely ascribes the name to Colenso.

However, these last two names are no longer available: Thelymitra grandiflora, validly published by Fitzgerald (1882, p. 495); and Pterostylis collina, validly published by Clements & Jones (in Clements 1989, p. 121). Coincidentally, both these species were also mentioned by Cunningham shortly before his death in a letter to Robert Brown (in Orchard & Orchard 2015, p. 475), but they apparently did not make it into any other of his manuscripts. He described the first as ‘a very dist[inc]t. sp.’ and the second as ‘a little fellow’.

Asplenium colensoi Colenso

The most puzzling Glossarium entry is Asplenium colensoi. It was stated to have been gathered at Waikaremoana in December 1841.

The specific name in the entry was definitely written initially as colensii but the first i has been overwritten with o (Figure 1), probably after W.J. Hooker silently corrected it on publication (in Colenso 1844, p. 26). In publications outside the control of Hooker, it remained colensii (Colenso 1845a, 1845b, 1847).

In almost every publication since that time, the name has been attributed to Colenso himself. Yet, in his account of its discovery, he states simply ‘n. sp. ms.’ (Colenso 1844) or ‘n. sp.’ (Colenso 1847) rather than ‘n. sp. W.C.’ as in every other case of a new species. Allan (1961, p. 73) erroneously attributed this publication to J.D. Hooker when, if it were not a nomen nudum, it should be attributed to Colenso or, possibly, to W.J. Hooker. In his herbarium, Colenso certainly labelled ‘Asplenium Colensii’ as attributed to himself, ‘W. Colenso’ (Hamlin in St. George 2009, p. 54).

In the Glossarium, however, the attribution of A. colensoi is ‘Hook, fil’ (i.e. J.D. Hooker). There is something unusual about both this and about the handwriting of the two successive Asplenium entries hookerianum and colensoi (Figure 1).

The attribution ‘W. C.’ of A. hookerianum has been printed as separate letters, not written as a single flowing glyph as in almost every other case, while ‘Hook, fil’ is also in separate letters, not in connected writing as in every other attribution. The capital Cs, of W.C. and Colensoi, are written unlike elsewhere in the checklist, nor are they even similar to each other. Nevertheless, they are in Colenso’s handwriting, and can be matched with examples from the scribbled notes outside the checklist.

In his published paper, Colenso (1845a) explicitly stated he had named A. hookerianum after J.D. Hooker and recalled the ‘unalloyed gratification’ he had of botanising with him. But about A. colensoi he said absolutely nothing as to the origin of the name. Being the Latin genitive form of his name, it explicitly named him as the discoverer of the species, under the convention previously mentioned.

It is not possible for J.D. Hooker to have suggested the name to Colenso prior to its publication. Hooker was in the Bay of Islands with the circum-Antarctic expedition of Sir James Ross during the winter of 1841 and went botanising with Colenso on a number of occasions. Colenso then left on the journey during which he collected the species for presumably the first time (Colenso 1844), and a few days later J.D. Hooker departed with the Ross Expedition and was at sea for most of 1842. Colenso had no contact with him between when the plant was collected in December 1841 and when he wrote the paper (dated therein 1 September 1842) in which the name was published. Colenso next wrote to J.D. Hooker on 17 May 1843 expecting him to be back in England (St. George 2009, p. 177); he mentions naming Asplenium hookerianum but again nothing about A. colensoi. Hooker had by then already written to Colenso from the Falklands in September 1842, but this did not reach its recipient until September 1843 (Colenso in St. George 2009, p. 180).

Why Colenso attributed the name A. colensoi to J.D. Hooker in the Glossarium is therefore a mystery. One might suggest some psychological cause: perhaps a hesitation when naming a new species after himself, or a surge of emotion (perhaps at a vulnerable moment) when recalling past times in the company of Hooker. The first would apply when creating the species in 1842, the second might be at any later time, perhaps years later. These kinds of explanation, however, are necessarily speculative.

Conclusions

Colenso’s Glossarium Botanicum: Novae Zelandiae is probably modelled on a notebook, Florae Novae Zelandiae, carried by Allan Cunningham during his expedition to New Zealand in 1838, which Cunningham was using as a reference and updating with new discoveries.

The Glossarium was later updated, firstly with information from Cunningham’s Florae Insularum Novae Zelandiae Precursor when the printed text became available, and with Colenso’s own discoveries subsequent to that.

The Glossarium, in itself, does not contribute any new taxonomic information to the botany of New Zealand, because of the lack of details accompanying those species which were not eventually published. It does, however, throw some light on the early days of Colenso’s evolution as a botanist.

Acknowledgements

I thank the State Library of New South Wales for their permissions and assistance in preparing this paper. I also wish to thank Alexa Whaley (Hokianga Historical Society) and Johnson Davis (Bay of Islands Vintage Railway Trust) for their local toponymic information, Pat Brownsey (Te Papa Tongarewa) for access to Colenso’s specimens, and the referees for their comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Appendix 1. New Colenso localities.

Hamlin (in St. George 2009, pp. 103–134) gave a list of localities appearing in Colenso’s published and unpublished writings, including his herbarium slips, but does not seem to have consulted the Glossarium. The following are Glossarium localities either not found in Hamlin’s list, or not located by him but for which more information is now available.

Kahio River—a locality of Cunningham (1838a, p. 212), Whangaroa. The Kaeo River.

Motu-o-Rangi—a missionary name for Motuarahi, the island just off Paihia (King 1992, p. 166).

Ngaire—‘opp. Cavalles’ is Ngaere, in Hamlin’s list.

Nihonui—not located by Hamlin. On modern maps the Nihonui Scenic Reserve is at the northern end of Paihia.

Onawero Bay, Wangaroa—Onewhero Bay in Whangaroa Harbour, not on current topographic maps. The small bay 1 km NNE of Whangaroa township, where the present-day road ends (Frear 1993, p. 10). A locality of Cunningham (e.g. 1839c, p. 106).

Oropa—not located by Hamlin. A Gazette notice (fide NZ Herald 20 May 1882) defining the Kawakawa Police District locates it at the junction of the road from Kawakawa to Pakaraka (now State Highway 1) and Whangae Road, 1 km north of Kawakawa.

Oue—modern locality of that name is on south shore of Hokianga Harbour, about 7 km south of Rawene.

Papakauri Fall—described by Yate (1835 p. 13) as a waterfall on the Wairoa Stream near Kerikeri, now more prosaically known as Wairoa Stream Waterfall.

Pateretere—on modern maps, the Pateretere Stream meets the Waitangi River about 3.5 km due west of Waimate North.

Pouarua—Pouerua, an old pā on a volcanic cone about 2 km southwest of Pakaraka.

Taranake Island—Taranaki Island in the Kerikeri Inlet.

Tauraki—a locality of Cunningham (e.g. 1839c, p. 26) on the Hokianga Harbour. Probably from ‘Te’ + ‘Hauraki’, the latter being an old spelling of the locality now known as Horeke on the south shore of the harbour (A. Whaley, pers. comm. 2015).

Uawai Bay—Uawa, Colenso’s correction for ‘Howa-Howa Bay’ (Tolaga Bay) where the species in question, Ranunculus hirtus, was recorded by Banks (Cunningham 1839c, p. 269).

Uruuruwena—‘Lake Uru-ru-wena, between the Waimate and Keri-Keri Rivers’ in the Precursor (Cunningham 1837, p. 361). The name was obviously not recognised by Colenso, who suggested ‘Mawe?’ (Lake Omapere), although that is not between the named rivers. As the name was actually recorded by Cunningham’s deceased brother, Richard, Colenso would have been unable to obtain further information. In the Florae (Cunningham 1838c), the second location was given as Hokianga, which would certainly support Colenso’s suggestion. Best (1927, p. 245) recorded an uru-uru-whenua (place where an offering was made to the genius loci) in that general area, near Ohaeawai.

Wai Purioi—‘near Paihia’. Not located. Presumably the same as ‘Waipuriri’ (in St. George 2009, p. 137, specimen no. 14).

Waitangi Fall—now known as Haruru Falls, on the Waitangi River, near Paihia.

Appendix 2. Dates of publication of Colenso’s East Coast journal.

As stated in the main text of this article, Colenso’s journal of his overland journey from the East Coast back to the Bay of Islands was published in one version in Hooker’s London Journal of Botany, and in an extended version in the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science and as a separate.

There are a few taxonomic names validly (although informally) published in the first version; for example, a shrub Coriaria kingiana (accepted by Allan 1961, p. 302) and a bird Fulica novae zelandiae. There are many more formally published in the extended version, including three zoological names: extant molluscs Unio waikarense and Patella solandri, and Pliocene fossil brachiopod Terebratula tayloriana (non Lea, 1841; suggested here as probably referable to Neothyris obtusa Thomson). The version published by Hooker is conventionally dated 1844, but so is the separate, while the Tasmanian Journal apparently came out in 1845 so appears not to have priority. However, the situation is more complicated than that.

Although Stafleu & Cowan (1979, p. 297 no. 3008) do not give exact dates of publication for each issue of Hooker’s journal, they can be calculated given that each volume began in January and contained 12 issues; each issue published on the first of each month and apparently printed on either seven or eight sheets folded twice to give either 56 or 64 pages. As Colenso’s journal was printed in a single piece, pages 1–62 of volume 3, the date of publication is 1 January 1844. This is confirmed by a remark by Colenso (1879, p. 107), who would have received the issue with the cover bearing the date.

It is now well known that the dates appearing on issues of the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science around this time cannot be trusted (Plomley 1969; Andrews 1986, p. 129).

Colenso’s first fern paper was published in an issue which bore the date 1842 but was not published until February 1843 (Plomley 1969).

His second fern paper (Colenso 1845a) appeared in issue 8 (volume 2) of the Tasmanian Journal, which, although bearing the date 1844 on the cover, does not appear to have been published until 22 or 29 January 1845 (Plomley 1969). The limpet Patella solandri was published near the beginning of Colenso’s extended account, in the same issue; the cover date is accepted in many citations (e.g. Oliver 1926).

The other new species names, both botanical and zoological, that appeared only in the extended account, were published in issue 9 (volume 2) of the Tasmanian Journal which had the date ‘April 1845’ on its cover, but which may not have been published before June 1845 (Plomley 1969).

Does the separate, which bears the date 1844 on the cover, have priority? Colenso had requested, in a letter dated 20 March 1843 to John Gell, secretary of the Tasmanian Society, that his description of the journey be printed and bound separately at his expense so that he could distribute it to his friends, meaning that he would technically be the publisher. The printing may indeed have been done in 1844, but Colenso (much to his frustration) did not receive his order until December 1847 (St. George 2016). Because of illness and various other reasons, Colenso sent copies to Sir William Hooker only in October 1848 (letter in St. George 2009, p. 230).

Both the ICN (Art. 31.3) and ICZN (Art. 21.2) state that the printed date of publication is to be accepted unless there is evidence otherwise.

It seems unlikely that any copies of the separate were distributed by the Tasmanian Society, as they were paid for by Colenso and were therefore his property; he had given no instruction to do so and, in any case, they were to be distributed as papers in the Journal. The earliest publication date, therefore, would be the date when Colenso received the copies and was able to distribute them (i.e. December 1847). This would constitute the required ‘evidence that [the printed date] is erroneous’ (ICN) or ‘evidence to the contrary’ (ICZN).

The Tasmanian Journal paper on his ‘excursion’ therefore has priority over the separate pamphlet and the publication date of all the new species is 1845. This is prior to the date of 1846 stated in Allan (1961), which was the date printed for the cover of the complete volume 2 (Plomley 1969).

Appendix 3. Concordance of historic and current specific names.

The text of this article uses historic names of species as given by Colenso, Cunningham and others, and occasionally the current name is noted. Table A3.1 lists all historic names used in this article, together with the current name and the attributing authority (i.e. the reference that explicitly mentions the historic name either as still valid or as a synonym of that currently accepted). Wherever possible, the Flora of New Zealand Online (FNZO; Breitwieser et al. 2016) has been used; in a few cases it lacks an obscure historic name, so has been coupled with an older reference. Where no authority is cited, my own opinion should be assumed. A similar concordance for every specific name in the Glossarium checklist (and in the Precursor) is available as a supplementary file to this article.

Table 1. Comparison of the species listed in Cunningham’s Precursor with those in Colenso’s Glossarium.

Precursor			Glossarium
Group	Number ranges	Species	Number ranges	Numbered species	Unnumbered species
Seaweeds	1–29, 31–48	47		0
Lichens	49–76	28		0
Mosses	77–97, 100–121	43	319–363	45	0
Liverworts	122–150	29	364–392	29	0
Lycopods	151–159	9	393–401	9	0
Ferns	160–245	86	402–490	89	35
Monocotyledons	246–322	77	491–572	82	3
(Orchids)	309–317	9	554–567	14	3
Gymnosperms	325–332	8	1–9	9	0
Dicotyledons	323–324, 333–639	309	10–318	309	3

The second supplementary file available with this article gives a detailed correspondence between the numbers in both works.

Table A3.1. Concordance between the historic specific names mentioned in the text of this article and the currently accepted equivalents. The second supplementary file available with this paper gives a detailed concordance for all specific names in Colenso’s checklist in the Glossarium and, additionally, for those in the Precursor that were not included in the Glossarium.

Historic name	Current name or status	Authority for current name or status
ANIMALS
Fulica novaezelandiae Colenso (1844)	Poliocephalus rufopectus (G.R.Gray)	Tennyson in Gill et al. (2010)
Patella solandri Colenso (1845b)	Atalacmea fragilis (G.B.Sowerby)	Oliver (1926, p. 582)
Pholas similis Gray	Barnea (Anchomasa) similis (Gray)	Beu & Marshall (1990, p. 346)
Terebratula tayloriana Colenso (1845b) non Lea	probably Neothyris obtusa Thompson
Unio waikarense Colenso (1845b)	Echyridella menziesii (Gray)	Marshall et al. (2014)
PLANTS
Acianthus fornicatus R.Br.	Acianthus sinclairii Hook.f.	FNZO
Adiantum assimile Sw. ('W.C.')	Adiantum aethiopicum L.	FNZO
Adiantum falcatum Colenso inedit. non Sw.	Adiantum sp. indet.; cf. Colenso in St George (2009, p. 147)
Alseuosmia hookeria Colenso (1845b)	Alseuosmia banksii var. linariifolia (A.Cunn.) R.O. Gardner	FNZO
Aspidium cunninghamianum Colenso (1845a) nom. illeg.	Rumohra adiantiformis (G.Forst.) Ching	FNZO
Aspidium cunninghamii Colenso (1843)	Rumohra adiantiformis (G.Forst.) Ching	FNZO
Aspidium pulcherrimum Colenso (1845a)	Polystichum vestitum (G.Forst.) C.Presl	FNZO
Aspidium waikarense Colenso (1845a)	Polystichum vestitum (G.Forst.) C.Presl	FNZO
Asplenium colensoi Colenso (1845a as 'colensii')	Asplenium hookerianum Colenso	FNZO
Asplenium forsterianum Colenso (1845a)	Asplenium polyodon G. Forst.	FNZO
Asplenium hookerianum Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Asplenium oblongifolium Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Carpodetus serratus J.R. Forst. & G. Forst.	still valid	FNZO
Cheilanthes pellucida Colenso (1845a)	Hypolepis dicksonioides (Endl.) Hook.	FNZO
Coprosma arcuata Colenso (1845b)	Coprosma sp. indet.; possibly a hybrid	Allan (1961, p. 586)
Coprosma crassifolia Colenso (1845b)	still valid	FNZO
Coriaria kingiana Colenso (1844)	still valid	FNZO
Cyrtostylis reniformis R.Br.	Cyrtostylis rotundifolia Hook.f.	FNZO
Dacrydium mai A.Cunn. (1838a)	Prumnopitys taxifolia (D.Don) de Laub	Allan (1961, p. 106) then FNZO
Davallia novae-zelandiae Colenso (1845a)	Leptolepia novae-zelandiae (Colenso) Mett. ex Diels	FNZO
Dracophyllum rosmarinifolium (G. Forst.) R.Br.	still valid	FNZO
Drosera collina Colenso inedit. non Lowrie	a replacement for D. peltata (q.v.)
Drosera peltata Banks & Sol. inedit.	Drosera auriculata Backh. ex Planch.	Hooker (1852, p. 21)
Epilobium nummulariifolium R.Cunn. ex A.Cunn. (1839b, 'nummularifolium')	still valid	FNZO
Epilobium rotundifolium G.Forst.	still valid	FNZO
Fuchsia excorticata (J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) L.f.	still valid	FNZO
Gleichenia arachnoidea A.Cunn. inedit.	Sticherus cunninghamii (Hew. Ex Hook.) Ching	FNZO
Hymenophyllum atrovirens Colenso (1845a)	Hymenophyllum australe Willd.	FNZO
Hymenophyllum frankliniae Colenso (1843)	still valid	FNZO
Hymenophyllum franklinianum Colenso (1845a) nom. illeg.	Hymenophyllum frankliniae Colenso	FNZO
Hymenophyllum imbricatum Colenso (1845a) non Blume	Hymenophyllum rarum R.Br.	FNZO
Hymenophyllum pulcherrimum Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Hymenophyllum revolutum Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Hymenophyllum spathulatum Colenso (1845a)	Hymenophyllum bivalve (G.Forst.) Sw.	FNZO
Hymenophyllum villosum Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Laurus tarairi A.Cunn. (1838a)	Beilschmiedia tarairi (A.Cunn.) Benth. & Hook.f. ex Kirk	FNZO
Laurus victoriana Colenso (1842) nom. illeg.	Beilschmiedia tawa (A.Cunn.) Benth. et Hook.f. ex Kirk	Wright (1984)
Lindsaea viridis Colenso (1845a)	still valid	FNZO
Lomaria banksii Colenso inedit.	Blechnum blechnoides (Bory) Keyserl.	FNZO
Lomaria crenulata A.Cunn. (attrib. by Colenso) inedit.	an earlier name for L. undulata (q.v.)
Lomaria deflexa Colenso (1845a)	Blechnum vulcanicum (Blume) Kuhn	FNZO
Lomaria deltoides Colenso (1843)	Blechnum vulcanicum (Blume) Kuhn	FNZO
Lomaria gigantea A.Cunn. inedit. non Kaulfuss	probably Blechnum novae-zelandiae T.C.Chambers & P.A.Farrant
Lomaria heterophylla Colenso (1845a)	Blechnum colensoi (Hook.f.) N.A. Wakef.	FNZO
Lomaria latifolia Colenso (1845a)	Blechnum procerum (G.Forst.) Sw.	FNZO
Lomaria linearis Colenso (1843)	Blechnum penna-marina subsp. alpina T.C.Chambers & P.A.Farrant	FNZO
Lomaria nigra Colenso (1843)	Blechnum nigrum (Colenso) Mett.	FNZO
Lomaria polymorpha A.Cunn. inedit.	Blechnum filiforme (A.Cunn.) Ettingsh.	Hooker (1844b) then FNZO
Lomaria rotundifolia Colenso (1843)	Blechnum fluviatile (R.Br.) Lowe ex Salomon	FNZO
Lomaria undulata A.Cunn. inedit.	probably Blechnum minus (R.Br.) Ettingsh.
Melicytus collina Colenso (1845b) nom. illeg.	Melicytus macrophyllus A.Cunn.	Hamlin in St. George (2009, p. 190)
Mida undulata Colenso (1845b, 'Mira')	possibly M. salicifolia var. myrtifolia (A.Cunn.) Allan
Nephrodium pentangularum Colenso (1845a)	Lastreopsis microsora subsp. pentangularis (Colenso) Tindale	FNZO
Notholaena distans R.Br.	Cheilanthes distans (R.Br.) Mett.	FNZO
Pennantia corymbosa J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.	still valid	FNZO
Phormium forsterianum Colenso (1851)	Phormium sp. ex gr. P. cookianum Le Jol.
Polypodium sylvaticum Colenso (1845a)	Polystichum sylvaticum (Colenso) Diels	FNZO
Polypodium viscidum Colenso (1845a) non Roxb.	Hypolepis rufobarbata (Colenso) N.A.Wakef.	Brownsey & Chinnock (1984)
Pteris montana Colenso (1845a)	Histiopteris incisa (Thunb.) J.Sm.	FNZO
Pterostylis collina Colenso inedit.	Pterostylis trullifolia Hook.f.	St. George (2014a)
Ranunculus hirtus Banks & Sol. ex DC non Spreng.	Ranunculus reflexus Garn.-Jones	FNZO
Rhodymenia lusoria Grev. in A.Cunn. (1837, 'Rhodomenia')	Pachymenia lusoria (Grev.) J. Agardh	Guiry & Guiry (2016)
Rhodymenia praelonga Grev. inedit. ('Rhodomenia')	a preliminary manuscript name for R. lusoria
Solanum nigrum L.	still valid	FNZO
Thelymitra grandiflora Colenso inedit. non Fitzgerald	Thelymitra sp. indet
Thelymitra lineata Colenso inedit.	Thelymitra sp. indet
Thelymitra straminea Colenso inedit.	Thelymitra sp. indet
Todea superba Colenso (1845a)	Leptopteris superba (Colenso) C.Presl.	FNZO
Urtica ferox G. Forst.	still valid	FNZO
Xylosma orbiculata (J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) G.Forst. ('orbiculatum')	still valid	Fosberg (1993, p. 65–66)