CENSUS OF THE PLANTS OF TASMANIA, 

 INSTITUTED IN 1879. 



By Barox Ferd. vox Mueller, C.M.G., M.D., PH.D., 



F.R.S. 



(Papers and Proceedings^ Royal Society of Tasmaniny 1879J 



In the following pages the first part of a statistic essay on 

 Tasmanian plants is submitted to the Royal Society. This 

 portion of the essay is limited to a list of those plants which 

 hitherto have become known from the main island and the 

 smaller isles under its political jurisdiction, as far as Di- and 

 Mono-cotyledoneae and Ferns are concerned. The arrange- 

 ment is effected chiefly in accordance with the Candollean 

 system, w^hich in most respects represents that of Jussieu in a 

 reversed series. But the apetalous ordei's of Jussieu or the 

 Monochlamydeai of Candolle have been distributed, with the 

 exception of the amentaceous orders, in the other large 

 systematic divisions, and thus several ordinal groups of plants, 

 ■which by adherence to the usual methods of arrangement 

 would stand far apart, have been brought into close proximity, 

 according to their nearest natural affinities. Since the comple- 

 tion of Dr. Hooker's great work in 1860 about fifty cotyle- 

 donar plants, indigenous to the Tasmanian territory, have 

 been discovered ; but probably another half-hundred or more 

 could yet be added by future searches, especially if such were 

 further extended to King's Island and the interior north-western 

 regions of the main island, where particularly among the 

 waterplants, rushes, sedges, and minute weeds an extensive 

 additional harvest might probably be gathered Along with 

 the generic and specific names in the list now prepared, is also 

 quoted the particular publication in which each plant became 

 systematically first established. Hence further details may be 

 traced out from these literaiy indications regarding also all the 

 plants added since the publication of the Flora Tasmanica. 

 Bentham's important labours for 17 years past on the vegetation 

 of all Australia have been of material aid not only in 

 augmenting the list to its present extent, but also in reducing 

 many specific names to older appellations, to be maintained by 

 the i-ight to priority. To avoid any perplexities which might 



