Thomas Kirk FLS (18 January 1828 – 8 March 1898) was an English-born botanist, teacher, public servant, writer and churchman who moved to New Zealand with his wife and four children in late 1862.

[2] Poor health and financial problems led to his emigrating to Auckland, arriving with his family on 9 February 1863.

Sir Julius Vogel credited Kirk's work in helping to get the first Forestry Act passed in 1874.

[5] He was appointed lecturer in natural science at Lincoln School of Agriculture, in Canterbury in 1881, and stayed until 1882, returning in 1883 and 1884.

During this period he botanised in Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula, Lake Wakatipu and Stewart Island.

His eldest daughter, Amy Kirk was a teacher, church worker and charitable aid hospital visitor in Wellington.

His youngest daughter Cybele Ethel Kirk, a suffragist, temperance evangelist, worked with unmarried and abandoned women and became a Justice of the Peace.

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker wrote of Kirk's death: "This is a great loss to Botany, for indeed except the late Baron von Mueller there was no other cultivator of Botany in the Southern Hemisphere who could compare with him and I have been looking for years for the Forest Flora of New Zealand by him as to a work of very great scientific importance".

All our varied forest trees and shrubs are minutely described and illustrated; the native and vulgar names are given, the properties and uses are set forth in popular language as well as in the ordinary scientific style.

The contents might have been more systematically arranged, as we find closely allied species widely separated, altogether alien forms coming in between.

A comparative table at the end showing at one view the particulars scattered through the work as to strength, specific gravity, &c, of the various woods, would have been an acceptable addition.

It would have been well to have issued a number for sale, as the narrow margin to some of the plates will not be pleasing to book-lovers.Thomas Kirk did not produce any of the illustrations for The Forest Flora of New Zealand, though they were carried out under his supervision.