I02 



NATURE 



[bEPTEMBER 24, I914 



embodied in seven volumes, and was completed in 

 1878. Bentham, while assenting- in his "concluding 

 preface " to the principles laid down by Hooker in 

 the Tasmanian flora, recognised as the chief com- 

 ponent part of the present flora of Australia the in- 

 digenous genera and species, originated or diff^eren- 

 tiated in Australia, which never spread far out of it. 

 Secondly, an Indo-Australian flora showing an 

 ancient connection between Australia and the lands 

 lying to the north. It is represented especially in 

 tropical and subtropical East Queensland. Then 

 there is the mountain flora common to New Zealand, 

 and extending generally to the southern extra- 

 tropical and mountain regions, while other con- 

 stituents are ubiquitous maritime plants, and those 

 which have been introduced since the European 

 colonisation. But the most remarkable, as they are 

 the least easily explained, are some few plants identical 

 with species from North and West America, and from 

 the Mediterranean. They are stated to be chiefly 

 annuals, or herbaceous or shrubby plants ; free-seeders ; 

 while their seeds long retain the power of germination. 

 This mav perhaps give the clue to this curious con- 

 undrum of distribution. 



It has been fortunate that the duty of working out 

 this remarkable flora should have fallen into the 

 hands of such masters as Robert Brown, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, and Bentham. The foundations were thus 

 surely laid. The further progress of knowledge has 

 been carried on by the late Baron Ferdinand von 

 Miiller, and it may be confidentlv left in the hands of 

 others who are still with us. The completion of the 

 task of observing and recording may still be far ahead. 

 But I may be pardoned if I utter a word of anticipatory 

 warning. There is at the present time a risk that the 

 mere work of tabulating and defining the species in 

 a given country may be regarded as the only duty of 

 a Government botanist ; that, whenever this is com- 

 pleted, his occupation will be gone. Some such 

 erroneous idea, tog^ether with a short-sighted economy, 

 is the probable explanation of the fact that certain 

 positions hitherto held bv professional botanists have 

 recently been converted into positions to be held by 

 ag-riculturists. In the countries where this has hap- 

 pened (and I refer to no part of Australasia) the vege- 

 tation had been very adequately, though not yet ex- 

 haustively, worked, as regards the flowering plants 

 and ferns. But who that knows anything about plants 

 would imagine that the ascription to a genus or order, 

 or the desienation by a couple of Latin names with a 

 brief specific description, exhausts what it is important 

 to know about a species? In most cases it is after 

 this has been done that the real importance of its 

 study beeins. Such possibilities as these do not appear 

 to have been appreciated by those who advised or con- 

 trolled these official changes. I have no desire to 

 undervalue the agriculturist or the important work 

 which he does. But he is engaged in the special 

 application of various pure sciences, rather than in 

 pure science itself. Advance in the prosperity of any 

 countrv which has progressed beyond the initial stages 

 of settlement follows on the advance of such knowledge 

 as the devotee of pure science not onlv creates, but is 

 also able to inculcate in his pupils. It is then impera- 

 tive that, in any State which actively progresses, pro- 

 vision shall be made for the pursuit of pure as well as 

 of applied science. In my view an essential mistake 

 has been made in changing the character of the ap- 

 pointments in question from that of botanists to that 

 of agriculturists. For the chang-e marks the abandon- 

 ment of pure science in favour of its specialised and 

 IocpI application. 



The head of such an institution should always be a 

 representative of pure science, thoroughly versed in 



NO. 2343, VOL. 94] 



the nascent developments of his subject. He could 

 then delegate to specialists the work of following out 

 in detail such various lines of special application as 

 agriculture, acclimatisation, plant-breeding, forestry, 

 or economics. Or, if the organisation were a large 

 one, as we may anticipate that it would become in 

 the capital of a great State, separate institutes might 

 develop to serve the several applied branches, while to 

 a central institute, in touch with them all, might be 

 reserved the dutv of advancing the pure science from 

 which all should draw assistance and inspiration. 



It matters little how this principle works out in 

 detail, if only the principle itself be accepted, viz., that 

 pure science is the fount from which the practical 

 applications spring. Sydney, as the capital of a great 

 State, has already laid her course, as regards botanical 

 science, in accordance with it. Her Botanic Garden 

 and the recently developed Botanical Department in 

 the University (which, I understand, may find its 

 home ultimately in the Botanic Garden) will serve as 

 centres of study of the pure science of botany. This 

 will readily find its application to agriculture, to 

 forestry, to economics, and in various other lines pre- 

 sent and future. I am convinced that it is in the best 

 interest of any State that can possibly afford to do so 

 to encourage and endow liberally the central establish- 

 ment where the pure science of botany is pursued, and 

 to continue that encouragement and endowment, even 

 though results of immediate practical use do not 

 appear to be flowinp- from it at any given moment. 

 For in these matters it is impossible to forecast what 

 will and what will not be eventually of practical use. 

 And in any case as educational centres the purely 

 botanical establishments will always retain their im- 

 portant function of supplying that exact instruction, 

 without which none can pursue with full effect a 

 calling in the applied branches. 



We may now turn from generalities to certain points 

 of interests in j'our peculiar flora which happen to 

 have engaged my personal attention. They centre 

 round a few rare and isolated plants belonging to the 

 Pteridophyta, a division of the vegetable kingdom 

 which there is every reason to believe to have appeared 

 relatively early in the history of evolution. But 

 though the type may be an ancient one, it does not 

 follow that every representative of it preserves the 

 pristine features intact. Throughout the ages mem- 

 bers of these early families may themselves have pro- 

 gressed. And so among them to-day we may expect 

 to find some which preserve the ancient characters 

 more fully than others. The former have stood still, 

 and may be found to compare with curious exactitude 

 with fossils even of very early date. The latter have 

 advanced, and though still belonging to the ancient 

 family, are by their modifications become essentially 

 modern representatives of it. For instance, the fern 

 Angiopteris has a sorus which very exactly matches 

 sori from the Palaeozoic period, and it may accordingly 

 be held to be a very ancient type of fern. On the 

 other hand, the genera Asplenium, or Polypodium, 

 include ferns of a type which has not been recognised 

 from early fossil-bearing rocks, and they may be held 

 to be essentially modern. But still all of them clearly 

 belong to the family of the Ferns. 



In the Australian flora only three of the four divi- 

 sions of the Pteridophyta are represented. For, curi- 

 ously enough, there does not appear to be any species 

 on your continent of the widely spread genus Equise- 

 tum, the only living genus of that great phylum of the 

 Equisetales, which figured so largely in the Palaeozoic 

 period; and this notwithstanding that one species 

 (E. dehiJe) is present amone the Polynesian Islands. 

 But all the three other divisions of the Pteridophyta 

 are included, and are represented in each case by 

 i plants which show peculiar and probably for the most 



