164 AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION. 
and the Australian Kauri, Dammara robust a 9 are confined to very 
circumscribed or solitary areas. The absence of superior spice plants 
(as far as hitherto ascertained) amidst a vegetation of prevailing 
Indian type is not a little remarkable, for Cinnamomum Laubatii ranks 
only as a noble timber-tree, and the native nutmegs are inert. The 
scantiness of acanthaceous plants is also a noticeable fact. Podoste- 
monece have not yet been found. Many plants of great interest to the 
phytographer do not seemingly ever quit the north-eastern peninsula, 
among these the Banksian banana {Musa BanJcsii), the Pitcher Plant 
{Nepenthes Kennedy and), the vermilion-flowered Eugenia Wihonii, the 
curious Helmholtzia acorifolia, the Marshal-tree, Archidendron Vail- 
lantii (the only plant of the vast Order of Leguminosa with nu- 
merous styles), the splendid Biplanthera quadrifolia, Mens magnifolia, 
with leaves tw r o feet long, the tall Cardicellia sublimit, the splendid 
Cryptocarya Mackinnoniana, are especially remarkable. Rhaphido- 
phora, Pothos, Piper t together with a host of Lianes, especially gay 
through the prevalence of Ipomceas, tend with so many other plants to 
impart to the jungle part of Australia all the luxuriance of tropical 
vegetation. Of the two great Nettle-trees, the Laportea gigas occurs 
in the more southern regions, while L. photinifolia is more widely 
diffused. Ilelicia is represented by a number of fine trees far south, 
some bearing edible nuts. Boryanthes excelsa, the tall Spear Lily, is 
confined to the forests of New South Wales. The flowers of Oberonia 
palmicola are more minute than those of any other orchideous plant, 
although more than 2000 species arc known from various parts of the 
globe. The display of trees eligible for avenues from these jungles is 
large. The tall Fern Palm (Zamia Benisonii), one of the most stately 
members of the varied Australian vegetation, is widely, but nowhere 
^ copiously, diffused along the east coast. It yields a kind of sago, like 
allied plants. The beans of Castanospermum australe, which are rich 
in starch, and those of Entada Purmtha, from a pod often four feet 
long, are, with very many other vegetable substances, on which Mons. 
Thozet has shed much light, converted by the aborigines into food. 
If plants representing the genera Berberis 9 Lnpatieus, Rosa, Be- 
gonia, Ilex, Rhododendron, Faccinium, or, perhaps, even Firs, ty- 
presses, and Oaks, do occur in Aust ilia as in the middle regions o 
the mountains of India, it will be on the highest hills of North-East 
Australia, — namely, on the Bclleudcn Ker Kanges, mountains still un- 
