68 THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIA 
at Albany from 8. Africa. What a revelation it was! At 
last 1 saw Australia-Vera: at last 1 was in a new and 
strange land: at last I knew and realised what I had only 
imagined I knew before. It is this great contrast that 
must b2 borne in mind. 
48. | would rather substitute the terms Oriental and 
Eu-Australian for the two floras—the one is only tropical 
in that it is allied to that of tropical Asia, the other only 
temperate or extra-tropical because it is best marked in the 
West, which itself can only be called temperate geographi- 
cally and euphemistically. The Oriental flora is more 
Asiatic in general aspect than in number of species actually 
common to Australia and Asia—there are about 620 flowering 
plants and 200 ferns specifically identical in the two areas. 
As might be expected, the most truly Asiatic part 
of Australia is the northern-coast line, the richest part of 
this is the region adjacent to Cape York peninsula, and the 
Asiatic plants have not crept far down the north-west 
coast. Itis highly significant, too, that the aquatic Dugong 
and the aerial Fruit-bat or Flying Fox (Pteropus) have 
the same restrained limit westwards, though the former 
goes south along the east coast to Moreton Bay, and the 
latter as far as Tasmania. 
49. No other portion of the world has such a remark- 
ably differentiated flora. Not merely in the distribution 
of its species, but in the characters of the true Australian 
forms, which are profoundly modified to adapt them to 
the semi-arid conditions which now characterise the major 
part of Australia. 
Vil. THE FOSSIL FLORA. 
50. Australia and Tasmania are rich in Tertiary de- 
posits, and they have yielded a very rich harvest of plant 
remains, so that the imperfection of the geological record 
cannot be applied in this particular instance. We have 
ample evidence upon which to found a correct estimate 
of the nature of the Tertiary Flora of Australia. And as 
New Zealand, on the one hand, and Borneo, Java and 
Sumatra on the other, have yielded equally rich data, 
we have plenty of evidence as to the nature of the vegetation 
in the ages which preceded our own. True, we are not 
