BY SYDNEY B. J. SKERTCHLY. 67 
we find that by far the greater number of the temperate 
forms are confined to a comparatively smal! area in Western 
Australia. Two-fifths of the genera and seven-eighths 
of the species are altogether confined to it. To this flora 
alone can the term Australian be accurately ascribed. 
It has spread, with modifications, all over the rest of the 
continent, but is there so altered, and so whelmed in the 
tropical flora, that it 1s quite subordinate. My friend, Mr. 
Cyril White, of the Botanic Department, Brisbane (who is 
himself unique as being of the fourth generation of botanists, 
his great-grandfather having been the first Australian 
Government Botanist, as his grandfather is still the oldest) 
has kindly undertaken for me the arduous task of working 
out the distribution of the entire Australian flora. Much 
interesting matter has come to lght in the course of this 
research, but it must be relegated to my further work. 
Only broad facts, and only a selection of these can be 
given. 
46. How entirely distinct the Queensland flora is from 
the West Australian is evidenced by the fact that of the 
4,474 species named in Bailey’s “‘ Queensland Flora” only 
620, or less than 14 per cent., occur in West Australia. 
47. But mere numerical statements convey but an 
inadequate conception of the difference between the so- 
called Extra-tropical and the Tropical floras. It is the 
general facies that is most striking, and I can best illustrate 
it by a personal reference. I came to Queensland after 
spending years in the primeval forests of the Far East, 
and my first introduction to Australian forests was in the 
scrub of North Queensland. To me it was a revelation 
and somewhat of a disappointment. I knew, so far as the 
books and specimens can teach, what the peculiarities of 
the Australian flora were, but this Atherton scrub, this 
wild tangle of the Barron Gorge, was not Australian at all. 
lt was the pure Asiatic ‘“‘ utan rimabau ’’—the deep forest— 
1 had left in Borneo. The same tall trees with broad 
shade-giving leaves, the same climbing “ rotan” (Calamus), 
and even the insects, gaudy Ornithopteras and royal purple 
Eupleas, met me on every hand. It all looked familiar. 
Some years afterwards, when 1 had grown accustomed to 
this flora, I entered W. AustraJia for the first time, landing 
