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BOTANY OF SOUTH-WESTERN NEW SOUTH WALES. 

 By Fred. Turner, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., etc. 



Introduction. 



In the early history of the settlement of Australia the south- 

 western portion of New South Wales was the theatre of many 

 heroic struggles and trials of intrepid explorers such as Oxley, 

 Evans, Cunningham, Sturt, Mitchell, Hume and Hovell, who 

 discovered for the world that rich and fertile section of country 

 now principally devoted to pastoral and agricultural pursuits. 

 In the published accounts of their travels there are references to 

 some of the most interesting plants growing there. I have 

 always felt I was on classic ground when botanising in country 

 traversed by those early explorers. I have seen the tree. Euca- 

 lyptus 7'ostrata, Schlecht., under which Hume and Hovell are 

 said to have camped in 1824. 



Although it is not a century since that part of the State was 

 a ten^a incoynita to the civilised world, millions of sheep and 

 thousands of horses and cattle are now being fattened on the 

 indigenous grasses and herbage where the kangaroo and wallaby 

 were the principal herbivora before the advent of the white man. 

 Hundreds of thousands of acres have been brought under cultiva- 

 tion, and in ordinary seasons millions of bushels of excellent 

 wheat are produced, and many other commercial crops are success- 

 fully grown. 



This paper refers to the indigenous and acclimatised vegetation 

 found between the parallel 33° South and the Murra}- or Hume 

 River (the boundary of New South Wales and Victoria) and the 

 meridians 141° to 147° East. The physical features of this 

 region consist of gently undulating country, sand hills, mountain 

 ranges, isolated hills, none of which, however, attain great 



