1338 



A US TRA LA SI A ILL US TRA TED. 



Xcphclinm, two kinds of grape-vines (with edible and perhaps improvable fruit) and a 

 Sarsaparilla (Smilax). Even the ordinary Fan-Palm (Livistona AustrcUis) glories yet 

 there with stems fully eighty feet high. Clematis aristata and Marianthus bignoniaceits 

 are among our most handsome climbers, the latter particularly rare. Asters are numerous, 

 nearly all small-flowered and shrubby here, but one Alpine species (Cc/misia) is herbaceous 

 and large blossomed, with whitish, silky stems and leaves, like those of the Astclia, with 

 its densely tufted habit, on our snowy regions. 



Before we pass in our considerations from the Flora of Victoria onward to that of 

 New South Wales, some remarks should be devoted to that of Tasmania. Its peculi- 

 arities are mainly contained in the mountain and particularly in the highland vegetation. 



Most prominent in this 

 respect are the conifers, 

 not less than six of them 

 being absolutely restricted 

 to the Alpine region of 

 the Island, and three 

 others also endemic ; 

 more than this, we are 

 led to comprehensive re- 

 flections, when we recog- 

 nize that the botanic af- 

 finity of the three Arthro- 

 taxis Pines of Tasmania 

 is, as pointed out by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, so great 

 to that of the stupendous 

 Sequoias of California, 

 that the latter could sys- 

 tematically be placed into 

 the genus Arthrotaxis as 

 A. gigantca and A. scm- 

 pcrvirens, although in the 

 vast space which severs 

 these trees no mediating 

 congeners occur to effect 

 any geographic connec- 

 tion between them. Thus 

 additional light is shed 

 in some respects by these 

 now far-isolated trees on 







the geologic history of widely separated portions of the globe, an interesting subject 

 of which our space forbids further mention. The several Riclicas are all Tasmanian, 

 though one extends to the Australian Alps ; but the arborescent Dracdphyllums exist 

 also in New Zealand, and one even at the summit of Mount Bellenden-Kerr, in Queens- 



TASMAN1AX WILD-FLOWERS. 



