34 SPECIMENS OF PLANTS COLLECTED AT KING GEORGe's SOtlND. 



subject further, and to show from Baron von Mueller's valuable 

 " Census of Australian Plants " (to which I am so much indebted 

 for the numbers and distribution of species) how correctly Sir J. 

 D. Hooker concluded, more than thirty years ago, that Western 

 Australia is the centrum and cradle of plants purely Australian, 

 and that in Eastern Australia the flora is not so rich in endemic 

 species, or so free from an admixture of such as may be regarded 

 as of foreign origin. At the present time it is impossible to 

 explain these phenomena, but it is probable that the progress of 

 geological science may hereafter bear testimony to the causes 

 whicli have led to fche differentiation of the Australian flora. 



Note. — Since these remarks were written, I have received from 

 the same locality Banksia coccinea, R.Br., £. attenuata, R.Br., B. 

 Uicifolia, R.Br., Callistemon speciosus, DC, and Sccevola attenuata, 

 R.Br., none of which species extend to Eastern Austi^alia. 



