Novae Zelandiae” (1855). Twelve years later Hooker, in the “Handbook of the New Zealand Flora”, published a revised list of 14 species. Dr. Lauder Lindsay spent three months in Otago in 1861–62 and subsequently (1866 and 1868) published a list of Cladoniae found by him in the environs of Dunedin.

These early botanists interpreted many species of Cladonia more widely than later specialists. All enumerated C. rangiferina and C. pycnoclada as New Zealand indigens; but, in the more restricted interpretation of the present day, neither species is now listed as occurring in this country. Lindsay (35, p. 533) even remarks, “I cannot distinguish it (i.e., C. pycnoclada) by any sufficient characters from the condition of C. rangiferina called alpestris”. Today, at least ten segregates are recognised as valid species. C. fimbriata has similarly been broken up into C. fimbriata (in restricted sense), C. Balfourii, C. Borbonica, C. coniocraea, C. cornutoradiata, C. cylindrica, C, major, C. ochrochlora, and C. nemoxyna, all present in New Zealand.

In 1865 Nylander published a paper on Lauder Lindsay's Otago collections, and in 1888 his “Lichenes Novae Zelandiae” appeared. Krempelhuber in 1876 published some new Cladoniae for New Zealand (32) as did Müller in 1892, 1894, and 1895, based largely on collections forwarded by Charles Knight and William Colenso.

During the first thirty years of the present century little or nothing was done save by Dr. E. du Rietz who, in 1926–27, made very extensive collections of New Zealand lichens, including some Cladoniae. In 1931, however, the late J. Scott-Thomson began a ten-year period of systematic collecting of the lichen flora of the South Island which included some 135 gatherings of Cladoniae. Duplicate specimens were forwarded to Dr. H. H. Allan, then Director of the Botany Division of the D.S.I.R., who in turn sent many specimens to overseas specialists for determination. The Cladoniae were examined by F. W. Gray and Dr. H. Sandstede and the latter's determinations appeared in Zahlbruckner's Lichenes Novae Zelandiae (62) in 1941. About the same period K. W. Allison collected Cladoniae in the Rotorua-Taupo area, of which several were new to New Zealand.

A short review of the Cladoniae of New Zealand by Dr. H. H. Allan was published in the 1937 report of the twenty-third meeting of A.N.Z.A.A.S. (1) in which 46 species comprising the known Cladonia flora of New Zealand were listed.

During the decades following 1940 the writer, while engaged in bryological field work, made a point of collecting associated lichens. For the past five years, only the genus Cladonia was systematically collected mainly in the South Island, some 800 gatherings resulting. On a study of these and of the plants in the herbaria of J. Scott-Thomson and of the D.S.I.R. the present paper is mainly based. At the present time Dr. James Murray, of Otago University, is engaged on systematic collecting and study of the indigenous lichen flora, and his help and collaboration have been much appreciated. The writer has also had great assistance from Dr. Alex. W. Evans, of Yale University, in the matter both of literature and of determination of specimens as well as in the provision of authentic material. Dr. W. Culberson has also without solicitation sent me valuable comparative material from U.S.A. It should be added that not all material has yet been determined, some being possibly new to New Zealand.