BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 125 



towards the sea. Notwithstanding these geographical limits, the Also- 

 phila, occupying generally the drier localities on the hills, recommends 

 itself better for transplanting. 



After several weeks' travelling in the neighbourhood of Port Albert, 

 and many excursions through Wilson's Promontory, I quitted Gipps' 

 Laud, returning homeward along the coast. 



This journey, the lines of whicli extended over more than 1500 

 miles, enriched so much my collections formed during the spring that 

 they comprise probably now more than half the indigenous vegetation 

 of this Colony. For, according to the Index which I have annexed, 

 including also several plants discovered previously by Sir Thomas Mit- 

 chell and by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, there are known 

 to me now already 715 species of Dicotyledonece , belonging to 286 genera 

 and 83 Natural Orders; 201 species oi Monocotyledonea, comprehend- 

 ing 100 Genera and 21 Natural Orders; and 47 Perns, containing 27 

 genera. About fifty other species, however, w^hich I have not included 

 in this general account, are not yet so strictly examined as to receive 

 their true systematic position, and are consequently not enumerated in 

 the hst; while fifty others, not indigenous, but introduced species 

 (marked with*), are likewise not taken into account, although they are 

 not only naturalized beyond the possibility of extirpation, but even 

 overpower the more tender indigenous plants. I regret that I was also 

 obliged to omit from this Index all the lower Acotyledoneoi (Mosses, 

 Lichenastra, Lichens, Algee, and Fungi), to the amount of at least 200 

 species, of which I could examine this winter too few to display them 

 in a systematic arrangement. The full amount of species therefore 

 considerably exceeds 1100, belonging, with exclusion of the above- 

 mentioned Acotyhdonece and the foreign plants, to no less than 430 

 Genera and 108 Natural Orders,— proportions which far surpass those 

 of Western Australia, where more than twice this number of species 

 (according to the collections of Dr. Preiss) are only divided into precisely 

 the same number of genera already discovered here (430), and only 



into 91 families. 



The Index might have been increased without diflacalty to a two- 

 fold number of names; but through a long-continued examination of 

 the Australian plants in a living state, I had the advantage of learning 

 how great is the uncertainty of many characteristics, which are deemed, 

 even by our greatest authorities in science, siifficlcnt for distinction. 



