PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS. 375 



erect S. lanceolata, S. scoparia, etc., which attain their most 

 luxurious growtli on the wooded sub-alpine ranges, near and on 

 tlie Great Dividing Range — wliere condensation and precipitation 

 of vapour is greatest and most continuous — to the decumbent, and 

 dirtuse S. serrnlala, flourishing on tlie drier stony northern ax'eas 

 at lower elevations. Another genus, Epacris, is represented on 

 sandy soils by the lovely crimson and white E. impressa, and 

 struggling to higher elevations along courses of streams are seen 

 dwarfed forms of the otherwise erect E. heteronema of lower levels, 

 while abundant on the damp upland marsh lands are seen 

 varieties of E. microphi/Ua, and on the stony crests of ridges, 

 the alpine species E. pakidosa and E. petropliila. Among 

 Rutaceous plants none are more generally distributed than the 

 Native Fuschia, Correa Laivrenciaua, especially on the sub-alpine 

 littoral slopes, where it is frequently gregarious. 



The genus Eriostemon contains a number of hardy species, 

 apparently endemic to our Australian highlands, including the 

 sparsely distributed C. ozofhamnoides, a robust shrub on rocky 

 situations. The Order Ranunculacese is also represented by a 

 number of alpine herbs, among which ai-e the species Rannnculus 

 anemonius, R. Miielleri, and the apparently endemic Caltha 

 introloba, so closely resembling a New Zealand species. 



Among the Labiat*, an order consisting principally of herbs 

 and shrubs, occurs the perhaps solitary arboreous form Prostan- 

 thera lasianthos, an inhabitant of most densely vegetated gullies 

 of littoral aspect. At sub-alpine altitudes of 2,000 to 4,000 feet, 

 an apparently alpine species, P. cuiieata may be found grow- 

 ing from the crevices of rocks at the highest elevations. In the 

 Proteacete, an order whose maximum of species is reached in 

 Western Australia, we have a few apparently endemic forms, as 

 Grevillea Miqueliana, G. aljrina, etc. The valuable notes given 

 by the Government Botanist in his examination of the " Vegetable 

 Fossils of the Auriferous Drifts of Victoria," (p. 10), appear to 

 indicate some resemblance between exisiting forms of tropical 

 Grevillea, and the vegetation of the Pliocene era. It is to be 

 hoped that further palseontological reseai'ches may yet be avail- 

 able for correlation purposes, enabling the pre-existing flora to be 

 more satisfactorily compared with the present, and by this means 

 trace out the successive changes which have taken place not 

 only in the surface configuration, but in the Flora and Fauna of 

 our present Alpine regions. One species of Proteacea' herein 

 referred to, viz. : — Persoonia juiiiperina is suggested by Pro- 

 fessor Tate of South Australia, as a probable survival of an 

 alpine flora of Pliocene date.* 



One species of Proteacese, the handsome Orites land folia is an 

 inhabitant, almost exceptionally, of the higher and colder regions, 



* Vide discussion on a paper submitted by the writer to Royal Soc. of South Australia, 

 on the Proteaceaj of the Victorian Alps, p. 8. 



