PREFACE. 



AMONG more extensive orders of plants in the vegetation of the globe four are almost 

 exclusively Australian, namely Candolleaceae, Goodeniaceae, Epacrideae and Myoporinae ; 

 they therefore can find their fullest systematic elucidation also best in our part of the 

 world. The last mentioned ordinal group is the only one of these four, which consists 

 of frutescent and arborescent plants entirely, and which on this account forms at many 

 places a prominent part in the Australian Flora. It is also this order, which is more 

 extensively distributed over all parts of the Australian Continent, than the three other 

 large and nearly endemic ordinal groups above mentioned, the Myoporinae indeed 

 attaining their highest development in the hottest and most arid regions of this portion 

 of the globe. Moreover it is the object of the present volume, to place on permanent 

 record these beautiful and remarkable plants, before any of them succumbs to impending 

 utter annihilation through close depasturing of runs or through methodic burning of 

 the scrubs, to which the native vegetation becomes more and more subjected. The 

 delineations now offered are all from the hand of Herr R. Graff; they do credit to 

 his artistic skill, and this all the more, as these lithographic drawings are his first 

 effort in botanic direction. Thus now all the 74 hitherto known Australian Myoporinse 

 have become illustrated on as many plates, each of the latter representing a well- 

 defined species. Gladly would I have given colored pictures of these plants, could 

 this have been possible within the means available ; but by extending the illustrative 

 work to chromo-lithography or to hand-coloring, the expenditure of issue and therewith 

 the price of the work would have become doubled or trebled. The descriptive portion 

 of this publication will be given somewhat later ; and. this for the present will be less 

 missed, as in Bentham's flora Australiensis all former writings on this order including the 

 full synonyms have been collected and systematically re-arranged, so far as the species 

 were known till 1870, while furthermore descriptive elucidations of Myoporinae are 

 accessible through the eleven volumes of the fragmenta phytographiae Australiae, com- 

 menced in 1858 and carried on till recent times. Of any medicinal or economic or 

 technologic value, perhaps to be assigned to the numerous species of this order, very 

 little is known beyond the fact, that pastural animals are readily browsing on the foliage 

 of some of the species ; but the time has come, when with augmented appliances here 

 these plants can be submitted to exact therapeutic and industrial .tests, for which through 

 the pages of the present work a solid basis is gained. A hope is also entertained, 

 that through information, conveyed by this volume, many more of the really gay 

 Mycporinous plants will become early added to garden-shrubberies in milder zones 



