86 THK VICTORIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXIV. 



ON SUPPOSED NEW VICTORIAN PLANT RECORDS. 

 By Alfred J. Ewart, D.Sc, Ph.D., F.L.S., Govt. Bot. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victor iu, 8th July, 1907.) 

 After the death of Baron Mueller, in 1896, a great lack of 

 co-ordination became evident in regard to botanical effort in 

 Victoria, different workers appearing to have proceeded indepen- 

 dently, without any regard to one another, and with still less 

 towards the National Herbarium. It is pleasing to be able to 

 record that a new spirit of scientific co-operation appears to be 

 rising among those interested in botanical study in this State, and 

 that the National Herbarium takes its proper place in this 

 movement as a centre of reference, subsidized by Government for 

 the general good and for the use of all. 



Unfortunately, a certain aftermath of the previous confusion 

 remains to be swept away, and it is the purpose of this note to 

 draw attention to one of the more striking but not the only 

 instance of inaccurate recording during the period mentioned. 

 It should be clearly understood that in drawing attention to an 

 inaccurate record of this period no reflection is intended upon 

 its author, but simply upon the system, or rather lack of system, 

 which gave rise to it. I wish also to emphasize the fact that 

 unless records are tested at the Herbarium continual confusion is 

 apt to be created, and to suggest as a remedy that in the case of 

 all plants exhibited at the Field Naturalists' Club, and recorded 

 as new to science, to the Slate, or to its districts, one specimen 

 of each such plant shall become the property of the Field 

 Naturalists' Club, and shall either be retained for reference by 

 the club or deposited in the National Herbarium. A mistake 

 made in such fashion that it can be corrected and is corrected 

 becomes of small account, but a statement that can be neither 

 verified nor disproved is a serious obstacle to scientific progress. 



The particular list to which I refer is one by Mr. C. Walter in 

 the Victorian Naturalist, vol. xvi., 1899, p. 99, which purports to 

 give a list of " twenty-five species unrecorded for Victoria, and 

 seventy-four with additional regional records." Mr. Tovey, my 

 Herbarium assistant, drew my attention to the fact that some of the 

 former could not possibly have been new records, and on investi- 

 gating the matter it appears that the whole of the plants had been 

 previously recorded, with four exceptions, one of which appears 

 to be founded on incorrect naming, and that, since we have no 

 exact details of the date, locality, and collector of two out of the 

 remaining three, practically the whole of this part of the list 

 becomes valueless, although its compilation must have entailed a 

 good deal of trouble to its author. The detailed list of supposed 

 new species is given below, with the data compiled by Mr. Tovey 

 and myself, and in regard to the list of new districts the 

 Herbarium cannot officially recognize any new record in the 

 absence of some tangible evidence of its validity. 



