146 DR. lEBD. MULLER's BOTANICAL REPOBT 



many of the southern tracts of Australia. Dew and occasional 

 showers of rain renew, even to some extent, the grasses in the 

 cooler season, more particularly in localities denuded by bush-fires. 

 It would lead beyond the limits of this document to contemplate 

 the botany of the country in its full details, but I may sketch the 

 principal distinctive features of the vegetation, which in a com- 

 prehensive view can be divided into the following groups : — 



1. Plants of the dense coast-forests. 



2. „ of the Brigalow scrub. 



3. „ of the open downs. 



4. „ of the desert. 



5. „ of the sandstone table-land. 



6. „ of the sea-coast. 



7. „ of the banks and valleys of rivers. 



The first division, designated by the colonists the brushwood or 

 cedar country, is characterized prominently by a great variety of 

 umbrageous trees, chiefly of an Indian type. These forests oc- 

 cupy the slopes of ranges fronting the east coast, and seem to be 

 dependent, not only on climate, but also, at least in some degree, 

 on the decomposition of schistaceous rocks. The monotony of 

 Eucalyptus here gives way to trees of the meliaceous, cedrelaceous, 

 sapindaceous, euphorbiaceous, celastrinaceous, rubiaceous, and lau- 

 rineous orders, intermixed with AcronycMa, Castanospermum, Ery- 

 tJirina, Ficus, Eupomatia, and trees of other genera, often inter- 

 rupted by a vast prevalence of noble Araucarias, matted together 

 into an impervious thicket by Hemes of Calamus, of asclepiadeous, 

 apocynaceous, convolvulaceous, menispermaceous, and ampelideous 

 plants, and harbouring in their shade numerous parasitical orchids 

 and ferns. 



2. The Brigalow scrub, peculiar apparently to a rather argil- 

 laceous sandstone, stretches in East Australia over the elevated 

 plains west of the coast range as far north as Newcastle range ; 

 and some of its plants transgress even the elevations which se- 

 parate the waters of the east coast from those of the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria. Its plants are varied in the extreme ; typical of it 

 are, however, shrubs or small trees of Cafparis, Pittosporum, Hete- 

 rodendron, Triphasia glauca, Geijera, Brachychiton, Cassia, Acacia, 

 Myoporum, Canthium, EJiretia, Bauhinia Hoolceri and Bauhinia 

 Carroni, Anthoboltcs leptomerioides, BelahecJiea rupestris, and prin- 

 cipally Eremophila Mitchelli and Strzeleckia dissosperma. Euca- 

 lypti, often of considerable size, are dispersed through the Brigalow 

 scrub. In a modification of this botanical feature of the country, 



