Preface. ix 



sufficiently ascertained; indeed the degree of variability, which 

 should be assigned to plants truly specifically different, is not yet 

 fully determined for all, even in the vegetation at some of the 

 oldest seats of learning in the world. Several of the species, stand- 

 ing in need of critical re-elaboration, are restricted to remote 

 regions of our territory, where these particular plants in their 

 native haunts could not yet be traced through all their states, 

 whether normal or aberrant. 



Some few generic alterations in the descriptive volume were 

 made, to fit the respective plants easier into the dichotomic 

 arrangement, but only in cases where the generic position would 

 seem optional ; still in some instances the change was demanded 

 by more recent researches on ampler material, and so it was in a 

 few cases as regards specific names. Doubtless indeed the 

 records of the characteristics could be augmented and occasionally 

 improved from future researches ; but at all events a solid basis is 

 now gained, on which to enlarge or embellish hereafter the literary 

 structure now offered. The descriptive details were kept more 

 curt in the earlier portion of the work, than in the later ; but in 

 the " Native Plants of Victoria " rather full descriptions are given 

 for all " hypogynous choripetaleae " before this, to which might be 

 referred, and that work can now most easily be continued and 

 completed, as the elaborated main notes and all necessary illustra- 

 tions are now extant through the present publication. But, as 

 much more important, may be remarked, that of nearly the whole 

 of the 1,900 vascular plants, known as indigenous to Victoria, full 

 descriptions are given long ago in the seven volumes of the Aus- 

 tralian Flora, which emanated mainly from the genius, the assiduity 

 and the life-long experience of the late George Bentham, aid being 

 afforded by vast material and subsidiary notes from here ; really 

 we would have had no cause for special writings on the Flora of 

 this colony as a whole, were it not desirable to have our own plants 

 treated in a concise and inexpensive publication here locally. 

 For delimitation of genera the celebrated work of Bentham and 



