164 THE VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXVI. 



VICTORIAN VEGETATION IN THE MELBOURNE 

 BOTANIC GARDENS. 



By F. Pitcher. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, llthJan., 1910.) 



It is hardly to be expected that one could find anywhere within 

 a radius of 2^ miles of the centre of so prosperous a State capital 

 as Melbourne even the smallest area of land in anything like 

 the natural condition in which it existed seventy years earlier, 

 to say nothing of ever hoping to trace within such an area a mass 

 of vegetation anything approaching the natural condition in which 

 it existed prior to that time. It may, however, be remarked with 

 a great deal of pleasure, and to the credit of the persons concerned, 

 whether they have passed away or are still living, that there are 

 yet to be seen, within a very short distance of Melbourne, in our 

 Royal, Studley, Richmond and Yarra parks, numerous specimens 

 of Eucalyptus, Casuarina, and Acacia, now, perhaps, of very 

 limited species, which serve to indicate, in part, the character of 

 the natural vegetation which existed on the site of our city prior 

 to its discovery and subsequent settlement. In addition, there 

 yet remain to-day along the banks of the River Yarra, on which 

 our city is built, and its tributary creeks, within a very short 

 distance of the metropolis. Acacia, Bursaria, Melaleuca, and 

 other plants in their natural condition, which afford additional 

 evidence of the character of the vegetation which previously 

 occupied the site of Melbourne and its flourishing suburbs. ' 



Now, when we consider that in the small area so wisely selected 

 by the first Lieutenant-Governoi of Victoria, the Hon. Charles 

 Joseph La Trobe, in 1840 as a Botanic Gardens site, since 

 increased to about 100 acres, there have been going on continuous 

 changes and transformations of the surface conditions, such as by 

 the erection of a stately vice-regal residence in its vicinity ; the 

 providing of suitable approaches and thoroughfares to and from 

 the city for its population living in the adjoining southern suburbs ; 

 the improvements of the course and southern bank of the Yarra, 

 which forms one of the boundaries of the site ; and, last but not 

 least, the remodelling and improving of the Gardens themselves 

 according to the varying ideas of the different directors from time 

 to time during the period named, it is almost unreasonable to 

 think that any native vegetation would remain of that which 

 existed prior to the discovery of the State, yet there are still a few 

 trees living within our Botanic Gardens vvliich were flourishing on 

 the site before the advent of the first of our white population. 

 It is to draw attention to these, with the hope of their being 

 retained as long as ever possible as memorials of such original 

 vegetation, that they are here referred to and their condition at 

 this date mentioned. 



