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History of Bryological Research on Stewart Island.
On April 17, 1850, H.M.S. Archeron, a paddle-sloop of eight guns in command of Captain John L. Stokes, in the course of a nautical survey of the New Zealand coastline, anchored at Port William on the north coast of Stewart Island. During its stay there of ten days, Dr. David Lyall, the senior doctor on board, made the first collection of plants indigenous to Stewart Island, including a small number of bryophytes. In the following five weeks and during January of 1851, the Acheron visited Port Adventure, Lords River, Port Pegasus, Mason Bay, Ulva, and Glory Cove in Paterson Inlet; but, though it is known that Dr. Lyall went ashore at Port Adventure “in search of new birds, plants, shells, and seaweeds,” all plants gathered are either reported to have come from Port William or merely from Stewart's Island. These plant collections were forwarded to Kew for identification, description, and record.
In his Flora Novae Zelandiae and later in the Handbook of the New Zealand Flora, Hooker recorded 15 mosses and 16 hepatics specifically, and 26 mosses and 7 hepatics by inference as indigenous to Stewart Island, which he variously terms Stewart's Island or Southern Island; but, strangely, Port William is erroneously referred by him to the Middle Island—better known to-day as South Island.
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Between 1882 and 1892 Thomas Kirk paid four visits to Stewart Island, mainly to study the vascular flora, but incidentally he collected several of the mosses. In the early nineties, two keen students of New Zealand mosses each paid a couple of visits to the island in order to study and collect the mosses. These were Robert Brown, of Christchurch, and William Bell, of Dunedin; but the only published records of their discoveries were Brown's description of 15 supposedly new species, and references by Beckett, Brotherus, Dixon, and Malta to a combined total of about a dozen mosses collected by Bell. The only really new species obtained by Brown was Trematodon mackayi, while the new genus Bellia, named in Bell's honour, was created for the reception of Bellia nervosa, first gathered near Oban in Stewart Island.
In 1907 and in 1908, Dr. L. Cockayne in the course of a vegetation survey of Stewart Island forwarded for determination to W. F. Brotherus and F. Stephani respectively a small collection of 34 mosses and 35 hepatics. The identifications appear in Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 42, pp. 320–324, with a note that “this list must be looked upon as merely a small contribution towards the knowledge of these interesting plants.” Amendments to the identifications are recorded by me in this paper.
Both in his published Report (1909) and in the Vegetation of New Zealand (1928), Cockayne makes frequent references to the bryophytes of Stewart Island and records many valuable ecological observations concerning them, but when all previous records are combined, the known bryophytic flora of Stewart Island comprised 76 mosses and 63 hepatics. Indeed, those specifically recorded total 50 and 56 respectively. As a result of the writer's investigations the number now known has been raised to: Mosses 182, Hepatics 136.
The writer has visited Stewart Island on numerous occasions and has traversed its surface from Mount Anglem in the north to the Frazer Peaks and Port Pegasus in the south, but attention has been centred in the bryophytes only during the past three summers. The difficulty of gaining access to many parts, particularly in the south and west, has already been alluded to, and the present research has in consequence had to be restricted to the area north of Table Hill. All identifications of the hepatics have either been made by Mrs. E. A. Hodgson, and all moss identifications have been made or verified by Mr. G. O. K. Sainsbury. Field notes are my own, for the accuracy of which I alone am responsible.