122 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



an endless number of plants useful to the colonists, by making known 

 such native species as possess qualities either noxious or beneficial, 

 and by publishing instructions eminently calculated to ameliorate the 

 climate of the country ; but we think he deserves special praise for his 

 patient and untiring researches into the Flora of Australasia, — researches 

 which, from their very nature, cannot be adequately appreciated in Vic- 

 toria, but which nevertheless will be of infinite value at a time when 

 progressive civilization and colonization shall have so modified and 

 changed the climate and aspect of the country that the present occu- 

 pants of the soil will be represented noAvhere, except in private and 

 public museums and in the pages of such books as the one now 

 before us. We wish we had it in our power to persuade the good 

 people of Victoria, who are by no means wanting in public spirit, to 

 encourage as much as possible such investigations as Dr. Von Mueller 

 has set on foot among them. The vegetation of Australia is peculiarly 

 interesting, because it is like, if not identically the same as, that which 

 existed in Europe during the Eocene period, and, as such, it is the 

 oldest on the globe, as probably the Australian aborigines are the 

 oldest race of mankind. There can be no doubt that, through the im- 

 migration of Europeans to the continent of Australia, the primitive 

 conditions until that event existing have been gradually altered, and 

 many native plants and animals have already become to all appearance 

 extinct. The same process will go on without interruption, until all 

 that was once peculiar to the country will have been replaced by foreign 

 introductions, — foreign people, foreign animals, foreign plants. That 

 being the inevitable destiny of Australian creation, no efforts should 

 be spared to preserve faithful records of what was found in this singu- 

 lar virgin continent when the process of spoliation^ as we fear we 

 must in this instance term civilization, was first entered upon. 



The present volume contains again many novelties, and figures of 

 some most remarkable plants, among the latter being FUzgeraldia mi- 

 trastigma {Anonacece), Davidsonia pruriens {Sa.v/fraffe<s), and the singu- 

 lar Casiiarina acuaria (Journ. of Bot. 1867, p. 211), the only species 

 of the genus which has true leaves, and which Miquel,,in De CandoUe's 

 ' Prodromus,' taking objection to the Latinity of the name, has called 

 C oxyclada. Perhaps the most remarkable part of this volume is the 

 paper on Styphelia, a genus which the author thinks ought to include, 

 not only Epacris, but also a host of other Epacrideous genera, and 



