105 
The VEGETATION OF THE DISTRICTS SURROUNDING LAKE TORRENS; 
* sketched by Dr. FERDINAND MULLER, of Adelaide. (Translated 
from the German by R. Kippist, Esq., Libr. L.S.) [Read at a 
Meeting of the Linnean Society, December 21st, 1852.] 
“Tt is a hazardous undertaking to subject the charms of the world of sense to an 
analysis of their elements.” —Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. i. p. 9. 
If I attempt to sketch in faint outlines the character of the vegeta- 
tion of the Northern subtropical division of our Colony, it will be much 
less with the view of crowding together a rich assemblage of large and 
majestic plants, than with that.of pointing out its peculiarities, which, 
although they offer to the superficial observer for the most part incon- 
spicuous forms, not unfrequently reunite the lost threads of the system, 
or lead us on in an unknown direction. For although the isothermal 
lines incline there much further towards the south, than the degrees of 
latitude would lead us to expect; and although the east coast of New 
Holland at the same distance from the equator rejoices in the most 
magnificent vegetative clothing; yet the neighbourhood of the Stony 
Desert, the Sahara of Australia, with its parching winds, as well as the 
distance from the sea, equally contributing to the extreme smallness of 
the amount of atmospheric humidity, counteract the development of 
the higher forms of tropical vegetation: It is true that the Malvaceae, 
and together with them the Casalpinee and the prickly species of Sola- 
num, unmistakeably increase in number towards the north, but these 
form only a very small part compared with the orders of plants of the 
same isothermal band under other meridians. But while we may 
readily account for the want of Mosses and Acotyledones by the extreme 
aridity of the soil, which is scarcely moistened except by thunder- 
storms, it remains unexplained why so many ether families of plants 
more or less extensively spread over the most arid steppes of Eastern, 
and more especially Western Australia, such as Proteacee, Epacridee, 
Stylidie, Myrtacez, the simple-leaved Papilionacee, Dilleniacee, Rham- 
nee, Tremandree, Bütineriacez, and Polygalee, either occur so very 
sparingly or else vanish altogether. It is true that this will least sur- 
prise us in the extensive salt plains along Lake Torrens, for these still — 
not only bear traces of their very recent origin, but are even now very 
little elevated above the surface of the Lake, and, veiled in the delusive — 
mist of the mirage, spread themselves out as if the ocean itself in its 
VOL. V. P 
