38 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



of the Australian flora, both from its numerous hitherto 

 unknown types of vegetation and the variety and beauty 

 of its flowering shrubs. It was therefore supposed that 

 the country was not only botanically rich in new species 

 and genera, but actually so in the number of its species 

 in proportion to area, and this may really be the case with 

 limited portions of West Australia (for which I have been 

 able to obtain no detailed information), but is certainly not 

 the case for New South Wales, Victoria, or Tasmania. 

 Cumberland County, which contains Sydney and the cele- 

 brated Botany Bay, is only a little richer than our counties 

 of about the same area, while the celebrated district of 

 Illawarra only produces about the same number of plants 

 as does Middlesex, which has, exclusive of London, a less 

 area. Many parts of Europe in a similar latitude are 

 much more productive. 



There is, however, one world-wide group of plants in 

 which, as regards small areas, eastern temperate Australia 

 seems to be pre-eminent — that of terrestrial Orchids. Mr. H. 

 Bolus, in his work on the Orchids of the Cape Peninsula, 

 states that there are 102 species in an area of 197 square 

 miles ; and he quotes Mr. Fitzgerald, the authority on the 

 Orchids of Australia, that " within the radius of a mile " he 

 had gathered 62 species of Orchids ; on which Mr. Bolus 

 remarks, " certainly no such concentration would be found 

 on the Cape Peninsula." I think it probable that the 

 " radius of a mile " is meant a mile beyond the city and 

 suburbs of Sydney, in which case it might be an area of 

 from 10 to 20 square miles. Or it might mean a picked 

 area of about 4 square miles of uncultivated land some 

 miles away. That this latter is quite possible is shown 

 by my friend Mr. Henry Deane, who has for many years 

 studied the flora of 20 square miles of country around 

 Hunter's Hill, on the Paramatta River, to the north-west 

 of Sydney, and he here obtained 59 species of Orchids out 

 of a total of 6 1 8 flowering plants. The sequence of the 

 first eight orders in number of species is as follows : — 



1. Orchideae • • 59 5- Compositse . . 32 



2. Myrtacese . . 55 6. Gramineae . . 31 



3. Leguminosoe . . 53 7. Cyperaceae . . 30 



4. Proteaceae . . 35 8. Epacrideae . . 25 



