Summary
Included here is the Chatham archipelago situated in the South Pacific some 450 miles east of New Zealand. The largest is Chatham Island measuring about 30 miles in length while the next largest, Pitt Island, barely measures 8 miles. The only others sufficiently large to support terrestral plants are Mangere and South-East Island, each measuring about one and half miles in length.
Of the endemic and near endemic vascular plants so far recorded there are about 39 species in 30 genera and 22 families but no endemic genera or families. However, Argophyllaceae and Asteliaceae are confined to the southern hemisphere. Apart from Chatham Island, Argophyllaceae only occurs in Australia, New Zealand, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia and Rapa Iti (one of the Bass islands in French Polynesia).
References
Cockayne, L. 1902. A short account of the plant-covering of Chatham Island. Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 34: 243-325.
Molloy, L. 1994. Wild New Zealand. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Northcroft, E. F. 1975. Adventive flora of the Chatham Islands. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 13: 123-129.