History of the taxonomy of the New Zealand native grass flora

Abstract

The New Zealand native grass flora comprises 187 species; the formal recognition of these grasses as worthy of taxonomic rank began with D. Solander's descriptions written in 1769–1770 during Cook's first voyage. The research of D. Solander, J. D. Hooker, J. Buchanan, T. Kirk, D. Petrie, E. Hackel, V. D. Zotov, and others in the history of taxonomy of the grass flora is analysed. Such an analysis is possible since the recent publication of our unified “Flora of New Zealand Vol. V Gramineae” (2000). Hooker in the 19th century and Petrie and Hackel into the 20th century emerge as the early dominant forces; Zotov and ourselves have added a significant number of taxa in the late 20th century. In 1853 Hooker warned of the possibility of Colonial systematic botanists describing an unduly large number of endemic species. We demonstrate that we have followed Hooker's proscriptive concepts despite a large increase in the number of taxa described in the last 40 years.