22 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



genera, and yet no one seems to have attempted to solve these 

 important problems. Certainly some observations have been 

 made in America and South Africa, but it is obvious that these 

 are of little value from an Australian point of view. The accents 

 of pollination are not the same, though of course we may get 

 suggestive hints which will assist the local worker when he 

 arrives. 



Dr. Brandis(21i has recorded some interesting notes on the 

 flowering-season of Acacia dealhata in India. Trees planted in 

 1845, up till the year 1850, flowered in October, corresponding 

 with the Australian tlowering-time. About 1 860, they were ob- 

 served to flower in September, in 1870 in August, in 1878 in July, 

 and, in 1882, they began to flower in June, the spring month 

 there, and corresponding with October in Australia. I)r. Brandis 

 goes on to say : — " Having watched the flowering of these trees 

 for nearly forty vears, thei-e cannot be any doubt in the matter, 

 and it is a curious fact that it should have taken the trees nearly 

 forty years to regain their habit of flowering in the spring. . . . 

 I have tried to see if any similar change of season can be traced 

 at Kew.' Plants there are grown under glass, and flower in 

 early spring or towards the end of winter, say February. 

 " The evidence then, so far as it goes, would seem to indicate that 

 the flowering-time had also progressively worked back in Eng- 

 land, though under more artificial conditions." 



Mr. Howard Fox, of Falmouth, writing on January 29th, 

 1883, reported that several trees of Acacia dealhata, 30 ft. high, 

 in the open air, had been in flower for ten days, but not so fully 

 as they might be expected to be in a fortnights time (22). 



This bears only indirectl}^ on pollination-problems. A large 

 majority of our plants flower in winter, and it is possible that 

 the scarcity of insects at that season may have resulted in the 

 modification of the flower towards bird-pollination. An inter- 

 esting observation connected with this is recorded by Mr. J. G. 

 Cooper (23), who states that the nesting-season of the Anna 

 humming-bird {Calypte a/ma) had altered from March 15 to Feb. 

 15-20 since the extensive cultivation of Eucalypts ip California. 

 "The extensive cultivation of Australian trees, perhaps, may 



