^°'- ^^/^'^'j Campbell, A Census of Grampian Plants. 105 



A CENSUS OF GRAMPIAN PLANTS. 

 By a. G. Campbell. 



{Read before the Field Naturalisfs' Club of Victoria, lltli, Sejjt., 1911.) 



It was in 1836 that the first botanical specimens were collected 

 from the Victorian Grampians. Major (afterwards Sir Thomas) 

 Mitchell, the soldier-explorer, in the overlanding journey that 

 made him famous, ascended and named Mount William in the 

 month of July of that year. It would be interesting to know 

 the discoverer's personal impressions of the flora, but he leaves 

 none in his diary. The time of year, it is true, was not the most 

 favourable, but his imagination was already fully occupied with 

 the marvellous agricultural possibilities of the Loddon and 

 Wimmera plains, through which he had just passed. The 

 famous cognomen, " Australia Felix," first came from his pen, 

 an inspiration from these plains ; and Mitchell was the first 

 man to prophesy the teeming population of rural workers this 

 country would one day carry. Compared with this, the moun- 

 tains, to his mind, would be a wild waste of rock. Nevertheless, 

 he was practical enough to carry away some specimens of the 

 common plants of Mount William. These passed into the 

 hands of Lindley, and received their scientific names. Some 

 of these were Tetratheca ciliata, Daviesia hrevifolia, Pultencea 

 )iiollis, Dillwynia hispida. Eucalyptus alpina, Cryptandra 

 tomentosa, and Grevillea aquijolia. 



Then came Dr. (afterwards Baron von) Mueller in 1853,* 

 when the secrets of the mountain's flora were exhaustively laid 

 bare. What few species that illustrious botanist failed to 

 enumerate were brought subsequently before him by his dis- 

 ciples and able assistants, Mr. John Dallachy and Mr. Daniel 

 Sullivan, of Moyston. The lists published by the latter gentle- 

 man appeared in the Southern Science Record, vols. ii. (1882) 

 and in. (1883), and in the " Proceedings of the Australasian 

 iVssociation for the Advancement of Science," Melbourne 

 meeting, 1890. The second list will be taken as the basis of 

 all future compilations of Grampian flora. Further small 

 additions were made in the report of the Field Naturalists' 

 Club visit to the Grampians in 1891 (Vict. Nat., viii., p. 181), 

 and in a paper by Mr. G. Weindorfer which appeared in the 

 Victorian Naturalist, vol. xxii., p. 48. That Sullivan's list 

 (erroneously called a complete census) has been added to by 

 some 136 species is sufficient excuse for this present attempt 

 to bring the census up to date. The total now of 686 species 

 of flowering plants and ferns is no mean one, and it places the 

 Grampians in a proud position among plant areas of this State. 



* See Vict. Nat., xxi., p. 19. 



