38 Torr, \Vt7d-flniafr<i of Soufh-\Vrsfn->7 Au^/raltn-. [voT.'^XNXiv 



attracts attention is the remarkable difference between the 

 S.E. and the S.W. quarters ; the amount of difference I behevc 

 to be without a parallel in the geography of plants. . . . 

 About one-third of the S.W. species are endemic; about i8o 

 genera out of 600 in the S.W. are not foxmd at all or are repre- 

 sented by very few sjx^cics in the S.E." Bentham. again, 

 seventeen years later, sj)eaks of the " remarkable isolation and 

 highly differentiated character of the flora of the S.\\'. corner 

 of Australia." Mr. j. H. .Maiden. F.L.S., in his interesting 

 essay on the vegetation of Australia, written in 1914 for the 

 information of the meml)ers of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science visiting Australia in that year, gives 

 details of the number of species in many Australian genera 

 and their distribution in the \arious States. His figures fully 

 support the remarks of Hooker and of Bentham. Though the 

 vegetation of the S.W. thus differs widely from that of the 

 south-east of Austraha, it must not be supposed that, owing 

 to the great number of shrubs and herbaceous plants, and even 

 of trees, of species and genera not occurring in Victoria and 

 New South Wales, a visitor from cither of these States would 

 have any doubt as to whether he were still in Australia. The 

 presence of such characteristic Australian trees and plants as 

 the Banksias, the Hakeas. the Xanthorrhoeas, the Eucalypts, 

 and the Melaleuca^ at once assuris one that he has not left 

 Austrahan shores. 



The country round Bunbury and along the coast, both nortli 

 and south, is flat, in places only a few feet above sea-level, cut 

 off from the sea by sand-dunes, sometimes of considerable 

 height — 50 feet or more. It is intersected by creeks, which, 

 at the lime of my visit, had a good flow of water, and there 

 are many swamjiy hollows in the sjjring. Where the land has 

 not been ek-ared it is either o])en forest and grass land, or, in 

 the light sandy I'umi near the coast, is co\-ered with fairly 

 dense scrub. The rainfall i> about 40 inch(^>. nml ilie latitudi^ 

 about that of Newcastle, New South Wales. 



Proceeding i)y rail from Perth to Bunbury. perhaps the first 

 peculiarity which strikes one is the stretches of coarse grass 

 and sedge hind, whose shrub and tree vegetation consists of 

 Banksias, with erect spikes of pale yellow flowers, looking like 

 the candles on a Christmas tree; ; of Xanthorrha'a (A', f^ifissci), 

 railed in the West " Black-boys," with very stout bla< k stem^. 

 generally branched, and in some places of Kingias, with similar 

 stems and leaf-tufts to the Xanthorrlueas, but bearing seviral 

 scapes with globular flower-heads. As one jiroceeds further 

 south the eye is delighted with the wide stretches of bright 

 blue, due mainly to the abundance of the lovely Leschcnatiltia 

 hiloha, and again the aspect of the roadside is changed by the 



