38 Topr, Wild-fowers of South-Wcstrnt Anslralia: [voT'^xxxiv 



attracts attention is the remarkable difference between the 

 S.E. and the S.W. quarters ; the amount of difference I beheve 

 to be without a parallel in the geography of plants. 

 About one-third of the S.W. species are endemic : about i8o 

 genera out of 600 in the S.W. are not found at all or are repre- 

 sented by very few sjiecies in the S.E." Bcnthani, again, 

 seventeen years later, speaks of the " remarkable isolation and 

 highly differentiated character of the flora of the S.W. corner 

 of Australia." Mr. j. H. Maiden, F.L.S., in his interesting 

 essay on the vegetation of Australia, written in IQ14 for the 

 information of the members of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science visiting Australia in that year, gives 

 details of the number of species in many Australian genera 

 and their distribution in the various States. His figures fully 

 support the remarks of Hooker and of Bentham. Though the 

 vegetation of the S.W. thus differs widely from that of the 

 south-east of Australia, it must not be supposed that, owing 

 to the great number of shrubs and herbaceous ])lants. and even 

 of trees, of species and genera not occurring in \'ictoria and 

 New South Wales, a x-isitor from either of these States would 

 have any doubt as to whether he were still in Australia. The 

 presence of such characteristic Australian trees and plants as 

 the Banksias, the Hakeas. the Xanthorrhoeas, the Eucalypts. 

 and the ^lelaleucas at once assures one that he has not left 

 Austrahan shores. 



The country round Bun bury and along the coast, both north 

 and south, is Hat, in places only a few feet above sea-level, cut 

 off from tlie sea by sand-<lunes, sometimes of considerable 

 iieight — 50 feet or more. It is intersected by creeks, which, 

 at the time of my \-isit, had a good ^ow of water, and there 

 are many swam])y hollows in the spring. Where the land has 

 not been clearecl it is either ojien forest and grass land, or, in 

 the light sandy loam near the coast, is covered with fairly 

 dense scrub. The rainfall is al)out 40 inches, and the latitude 

 about that «>! Newcastle, New South Wales. 



Proceeding by rail from Perth to Buni)ury. perhaps the first 

 peculiarity which strikes one is the stretches of coarse grass 

 and sedge land, whose shrub and tree vegetation consists of 

 Banksias. with erect spikes of pale yellow flowers, looking like 

 the candles on a Christmas tree ; of Xanthorrhoea (A', preissei). 

 called in the West " Black-boys," with very stout black stems, 

 generally branched, and in some places of Kingias, with similar 

 stems and leaf-tufts to the Xanthorrhoeas, but bearing several 

 scapes with globular flower-heads. As one proceeds further 

 south the eye is delighted with the wide stretches of l)right 

 blue, due mainly to the abundance of the lovely Lcschcnaultia 

 biloba, and again the aspect of the roadside is changed by the 



