246 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



the geography of plants. The expedition was planned more with a 

 view of ascertaining the alliance between the vegetation of the Alps of 

 Australia and plants of other countries, than with anticipations of 

 largely enriching thereby the number of plants already under notice. 

 Stillj by referring to the enumeration annexed to this document, and 

 to my former annual reports, it will be observed that the total amoimt 

 of either truly alpine, or at least subalpine plants of this country, ex- 

 ceeds one hundred species, and it is pleasant to perceive that half of 

 these are endemic, or not yet elsewhere discovered ; whilst by far the 

 greater part of the other half comprises such as inhabit Tasmania, or 

 are likewise natives of New Zealand. A much smaller proportion is 

 identical with plants found exclusively in New Zealand, or Lord Auck- 

 land's Group, or Campbell's Island. The genus Drapetes, for a long 

 time only known in Fuegia, is now ascertained to exist, with other 

 plants from the cold zone of South America, in the Australian Alps, 

 New Zealand, Tasmania, and Borneo, and many other instances might 

 be adduced to show the typical resemblance of many plants from the 

 Alps of Australia with those of distant countries. As a most surprismg 

 fact in this regard, I beg to allude to the sudden reappearance of several 

 European plants in the heart of the Australian Alps, plants which may 

 be searched for in vain in the intervening country, viz. : — Turritis gh- 

 Ira, Sagina procumbenSy AlcJiemilla vulgaris^ Veronica serpylUfoUay Carex 

 pyrenaica^ Carex echinata^ Carex caneseens^ Carex Buxbaumii, and Botrg- 

 c/ilum Lunaria. I may also advert to the occurrence of Lydmachia 

 vulgaris in the Gipps' Land morasses as another singular instance of 

 the enigmatic laws which rule the distribution of plants, and I cannot 

 suppress my opinion that such facts tend to annihilate all theories m 

 fa^'o^r of migration of species from supposed centres of creation. 



The Index which I have annexed comprises also a large number of 

 Seaweeds, discovered by Professor ILirvey, and adds thus 96 genera 

 and 327 species to my previous enumerations, advancing the number 

 of the former to 776, a sum which, as excluding all yet introduced 

 plants, all Fungi, and many undetermined genera of the lower Orders, 

 must be considered eminently large. The number of species ascer- 

 tained to occur in Victoria exceeds, under the exclusions alluded to, 

 already 2000. Excluding all Algje, 15 genera have been added to the 

 Flora of this Continent, two of them new to science— CaZ^Aa, IlowUtia. 



'^olohanthus, ^Dichopetalum, Pozoa, ^Biplaspis, Seu^Ii, ^Diodia, "Net- 



