vi Introductory Remarks. 



relative value of their yield. It was therefore not always easy, to 

 " sift the chaff from the grain," when these notes were gathered ; the 

 remarks, offered in this work, might indeed under less rigorous restric- 

 tions have been indefinitely extended; and although the author has during 

 more than twenty years been watching also for industrial tests the plants, 

 introduced by him into the Melbourne Bot. Garden, and has during 

 nearly as long a time of travels been scrutinising the circumstances of 

 the spontaneous occurrence for vast multitudes of species, he had still 

 to a very large extent to rely implicitly on the experience of other 

 observers elsewhere. It may also at once be stated here, that when 

 calculations of measurements and data of weights were quoted, such 

 always represent, if not already anyhow absolute, the maximum as far 

 as hitherto on record. It was not always found easy, to determine 

 with accuracy the geographic range of the species for this work in 

 brief terms, as even some of the best and newest taxologic books on 

 plants relate not with sufficient distinctness, what is truly indigenous 

 and what merely naturalised in any particular part of the globe. 

 Furthermore schematic indices, to facilitate general views over the 

 geographic distribution of plants, such as given for Australia in " a 

 systematic census of plants with geographic and literary annota- 

 tions," have not as yet been forthcoming for any of the other great 

 divisions of the earth with completeness, although Nyman has pub- 

 lished a full list of European plants with mentioning of the countries 

 of their nativity there. The restitution of some of the oldest specific 

 names has been effected from Hooker and Jackson's Index Kewensis. 

 To draw prominent attention to the primarily important among the 

 very many hundreds of plants, referred to in these pages, the leading 

 species have been designated with an asterisk. It has not been found 

 easy in numerous instances, to trace the original source of whatever 

 information on utilitarian plants we find recorded in the various 

 volumes of phytographic or rural or technologic literature ; many 

 original observations are however contained in the writings, accessible 

 here, of Bernardin, Bentham, Bentley, Boehmer, Brandis, Brockhaus, 

 Candolle, Chambers, Collins, Drury, Engelmann, Engler, Flueckiger, 

 Fraas, Goeze, Asa Gray, Grisebach, Hanbury, Hilgard, Hooker, Huse- 

 mann, King, Koch, Krichauff, Langethal, Lawson, Lindley, Lorentz, 

 Loudon, Maiden, Martius, Masters, Meehan, Meyer, Michaux, Molineux, 

 Naudin, Nuttall, Oliver, Pereira, Philippi, Porcher, Rosenthal, Rox- 

 burgh, Sargent, Seemann, Semler, Simmonds, Trimen, Watt, Wiesner, 

 Wilkinson, Wittstein and others, to whose names reference is cur- 

 sorily made in the text. The volumes of the Agricultural Department 



