274 AFFINITIES OF AFRICAN AND AUSTRALIAN FLORAS. 



will therefore be understood that we owe to them only a few inci- 

 dental notices of their botanical features. For an accurate examina- 

 tion of these the pioneers of commerce have neither the means, the 

 opportunities, nor the requisite scientific knowledge. As far as its 

 flora is concerned, the Australian interior is wholly "virgin soil," a 

 new botanical world, perhaps, awaiting the advent of a Columbus. 

 Only the littoral districts have been satisfactorily explored ; and here, 

 in the south, we meet with the names of Labillardiere, Robert Brown, 

 Gaudichaud, D'Urville, Sieber, Lesson, Cunningham, and other emi- 

 nent botanists. To these celebrated names we must also add those of 

 Dr. Mueller, Director of the Botanical Gardens at Melbourne, Sir 

 William Hooker, and Mr. Bentham. Their united labours have 

 provided the public with a vast amount of curious and authentic 

 information, and have established the fact that the botany of New 

 Holland, like its zoology, has a physiognomy peculiarly its own, and 

 that many, nay, most of its vegetable species, are not less charac- 

 teristic than its strange and astonishing animal types. One is almost 

 tempted to adopt in sober earnest what Sydney Smith said in humorous 

 exaggeration, that, " in this remote part of the earth, Nature (having 

 made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular and 

 useful productions for the rest of the world) seems determined to 

 have a bit of play, and to amuse herself as she pleases." * Un- 

 doubtedly she has indulged in the most wayward and eccentric 

 forms. If there exist any relations between the vegetation of 

 Australia and that of any other part of the globe, it is certainly with 

 the districts of Southern Africa which lie near the Cape of Good 

 Hope that Australia exhibits the greatest affinity. It would seem as 

 if these two continents in some remote age had not been separated, 

 as they now are, by " leagues of salt water," but that their vegetable 

 species had been able to propagate themselves freely from the one to 

 the other. 



According to Richard, the approximative number of species distin- 

 guished by botanists amounts to about five thousand ; but so many 



* Sydney Smith, in Edinburgh Review, for 1819. 



