POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 59 



The next meeting of the Australasian Association is to be lield 

 in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, under the presidency of the 

 Governor, Sir Robert Hamilton. The energetic secretaries. Prof. 

 Liversidge, Prof. Hutton, and Mr. Morton, promise a cordial wel- 

 come to any of our members visiting the Association. Should 

 you accept the invitation, you will enjoy every feature of the 

 remarkable island, Tasmania, where the meeting is to be held. 

 You will be delighted by Tasmanian scenery, vegetation, and cli- 

 mate ; but that which will give you the greatest enjoyment in this 

 as in other English South Sea colonies is the fact that you are 

 among English-speaking friends half-way around the world. You 

 will find that their efficient Association is devoted to the advance- 

 ment of science and the promotion of sound learning. In short, 

 you will be made to feel at home. 



The subject which I have selected for the valedictory address 

 deals with certain industrial, commercial, and economic ques- 

 tions : nevertheless, it lies wholly within the domain of botany. 

 I invite you to examine with me some of the possibilities of eco- 

 nomic botany. 



Of course, when treating a topic which is so largely specula- 

 tive as this, it is difficult and unwise to draw a hard and fast line 

 between possibilities and probabilities. Nowadays possibilities 

 are so often realized rapidly that they become accomplished facts 

 before we are aware. 



In asking what are the possibilities that other plants than those 

 we now use may be utilized we enter upon a many-sided inquiry.* 

 Speculation is rife as to the coming man. May we not ask what 

 plants the coming man will use ? 



There is an enormous disproportion between the total number 

 of species of plants known to botanical science and the number of 

 those which are employed by man. 



The species of flowering x^lants already described and named 

 are about one hundred and seven thousand. Acquisitions from 

 unexplored or imperfectly explored regions may increase the ag- 

 gregate perhaps one tenth, so that we are within very safe limits 



* The following are among the more useful works of a general character dealing with 

 the subject. Others are referred to either in the text or notes. The reader may consult 

 also the list of works on Economic Botany in the catalogue published by the Linnaean 

 Society. 



Select Extra-tropical Plants, readily Eligible for Industrial Culture or Naturalization, 

 with Indications of their Native Countries and some of their Uses. By Baron Ferd. von 

 Mueller, K. C. M. G., F. R. S., etc., Government Botanist for Victoria. Melbourne, 1888. 

 Seventh edition, revised and enlarged. 



At the close of his treatise on industrial plants. Baron von Mueller has grouped the 

 genera indicating the different classes of useful products in such a manner that we can 

 ascertain the respective numbers belonging to the genera. Of course, many of these 



