BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Rainfall and Plant Distribution in Australia. It does not 

 require long experience in the observation of plant life in Australia to 

 realize that in certain features it is peculiar. Everywhere one is struck 

 with its fair degree of monotony. A closer analysis shows that this is 

 in part due to the fact that there is comparatively little diversity in 

 the foliage. And, also, the common saying in Australia that the plants 

 shed their bark and not their leaves, has at least a moiety of truth, 

 inasmuch as the perennials are as a whole sclerophyllous. In addition 

 to these features there is a monotony of color, the advent of spring, for 

 example, save for the burst of bloom, making relatively little difference 

 in this respect. Such features as these point to the probability that 

 the environmental conditions that prevail today may have been in 

 operation over a very long period of time. Hence a study of the en- 

 vironment under which the plants are growing at the present, and to 

 which their ancestors were probably exposed in past ages, is of partic- 

 ular interest. Such a study, limited to rainfall, has lately been put 

 out by Dr. Griffith Taylor, and merits early notice. 1 



As is well known, the island continent has as a whole a low rainfall. 

 A vast area, for example, situated west of the center receives less than 10 

 inches of rain annually. But, in general, the rainfall increases in amount 

 and in reliability as one recedes from the center, and the margins may 

 be well watered. The rains are largely seasonal with more or less dry 

 mid-seasons. These features are satisfactorily explained by the posi- 

 tion of Australia on the globe, by its extent, and its topography. In 

 the north the continent comes under tropical conditions, and in the 

 south under those of the temperate zone. The seasonal shifting north- 

 south of the climatic complex operates to bring rains in the north 

 in summer and in the south in winter. Between the two is a great 

 stretch of country that is subject to neither tropical nor temperate 

 conditions, although it may be affected by both. This is the desert. 

 These various climatic conditions and relations are well presented in 

 the memoir. Mention need be made here only of a very ingenious. 



1 Taylor, Griffith. The Australian environment, especially as controlled by 

 rainfall. Advisory Council of Sci. and Ind., Memoir No. 1. Melbourne, 1918. 



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