ON OAEPESIUM CERNUmi IN QUEENSLAND. 267 



have been two chief centres of preservation subsequent differen- 

 tiation and extension— one in or about east tropical Africa, whence 

 the order extended northward but sparingly into Europe and 

 southward to the Cape, the other towards the eastern extremity, 

 where it extended very sparingly northward into China and Japan 

 and more abundantly southward into Australia. 



I would observe, however, that in speaking of the most ancient 

 home of EuphorbiaceaD I do not mean to go back to that ancient 

 geological period when Central Europe enjoyed a tropical climate 

 and the Arctic regions a temperate one. We have as yet no evi- 

 dence whatever of Euphorbiacese having then existed. If, how- 

 ever, they did then exist, Buxese may possibly be the result of an 

 early differentiation even in those times ; they may have origi- 

 nated in what are now temperate regions, and from thence have 

 spread southwards, forming in America the West-Indian Buxi 

 and the Andine Stylocerases, and in the Old World the Buxi 

 proper and Sarcococca, remaining represented in the north by 

 ■Pachysandra and Simmondsia. This, however, is not at all opposed 

 to what has been said of the tropical origin of other extratropical 

 Euphorbiacese. 



On the Existence of Carpesium cernuum ?, Willd., in Queensland, 



m a Lettei/addressed to the Society's Secretary. By Lewis 

 A. BernIys, Esq., E.L.S., Vice-Pres. Queensland Acclima- 

 tization Society. 



[Read November 7, 1878.] 



I 



have jnst returned from a few days' trip among the mountain- 

 ranges forming the watershed of the Brisbane Waterworks, which 

 I spent in examining, accompanied by Mr. E. M. Bailey, 

 Keeper of the Queensland Herbarium, an able and experienced 

 botanist. In the course of our rambles we fell in with a species 

 of Carpesium, probably the C. cernuum, Willd., of which I send 

 you herewith a specimen under special cover. 



Some years ago Mr. Bailey met with a plant of this genus ; but 

 Baron Mueller (to whom he sent it) expressed the belief that it 

 must have been imported. The discovery this time sets the sup- 

 position quite at rest, as the locality in which we found the speci- 



