180 president's address — SECTION D. 



My biographical notes deal with those botanists who have passed 

 away from us. Of living South Australian botanists I will simply 

 enumerate the following, who are doing good work and who are valued 

 correspondents of mine : — 



Otto Tepper, whose papers will be referred to in detail in this 

 address ; Samuel Dixon, the well-known authority on the fodder 

 value of South Australian indigenous plants ; Walter 0111, Conservator 

 of Forests, Adelaide, a sound dendrologist, who has done so much to 

 spread a knowledge of the trees of his own State ; Dr. F. S. Rogers, a 

 distinguished authority on the orchids of South Australia ; J. M. JBlack, 

 a well-known critical botanist, who studies both the introduced and 

 endemic flora of this State ; and Max Koch, an admirable collector, 

 who, by his work at Mount Lyndhurst in particular, has advanced the 

 botany of the northern area. 



v.— DEFINITIONS OF PLANT REGIONS OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 



It is interesting to trace the evolution of generalisations in regard 

 to the botanical areas of South Australia. To satisfactorily generalise 

 about the flora of such a large territory requires extensive local know- 

 ledge and mature judgment. Nevertheless, the early observers made 

 remarkably shrewd statements in regard to the classification of the 

 territory with respect to the prevalent vegetation. This is a subject 

 to which the late Professor Tate paid special attention, but extensive 

 as were his local explorations, and sapient as were his generalisations, 

 much requires yet to be done in working out details of the botanical 

 map of South Australia, and co-ordinating them with botanical areas 

 in the other States. For we must remember that plants ignore the 

 political boundaries of the States, so that South Australian botanists 

 are interested in the work of their brethren in the other States who are 

 engaged in defining botanical areas. 



Let us trace certain works in chronological order — 



1. " On the character of the South Australian Flora in general," 

 by Dr. H. Behr (translated from the German in Schlechtendal's Linncea, 

 Bd. XX., Heft 5, bv Richard Kippist, Librarian, Linnean Society). 

 (Hooker's Journ. BoL, III., 129, 1851.) 



Behr divides the flora of South Australia into grass-land and scrub. 



" One variety of the grass-land is the pit-land (Bay of Biscay 

 land), " consisting of undulating plains or gently inclined slopes, which 

 resemble a sea suddenly frozen during the beating of the waves. 



A second variety of the vegetation of the grass-land is afforded 

 by the beds of rivers when dried up in summer. 



The scrub differs from the above-described forms of vegetation 

 by the utter want of a turf ; its almost entire want of herbaceous 

 plants is compensated by a profusion of bushes and small trees. 



One variety of these forest districts is distinguished under the 

 name of " pine forest." The " sand plains " are more evidently 

 distinct from the true scrub. 



