[xii] 



can scarcely tell to what tribes it is allied; and although, from the pe- 

 culiar felicity of the Linnaean sexual system, founded on parts which 

 every plant must have, we are at no loss to find its class and order [i. e. 

 Decandria Monogynia] in that which is an artificial system, we still 

 scarcely know what genera are its natural allies'. It was the great 

 triumph of Robert Brown that he overcame these difficulties with such 

 insight and understanding founded on minute observation as to place 

 the study of Australian plants henceforth on a natural system expressing 

 significant correlations. 



Cook did not touch Australia on his second voyage, on which he was 

 accompagnied by Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg 

 Forster (cf. Merill, 1954: 201—211), but on the third voyage (1776— 

 1780), in the Resolution, Cook visited Adventure Bay, Tasmania, in Ja- 

 nuary 1777 and here David Nelson (d. 1789) and William Anderson 

 (d. 1778) collected specimens which passed into Banks's herbarium. 



In 1791 Archibald Menzies (1754 — 1842), surgeon and naturalist on 

 Vancouver's Discovery, collected specimens in KingGeorge's Sound [d], 

 Western Australia, which likewise came to Banks. Next year this s. w. 

 corner of Western Australia so rich in endemic species (cf. Gardner, 

 1944; Keast, 1960; Burbidge, 1960) was visited by a French expedi- 

 tion, that of d'Entrecasteaux in the ships La Recherche and L'Es- 

 perance. Here at Esperance Bay ('in terra van-Leuwin') [e] in December 

 1792, and also in Tasmania ('in capite van-Diemen') at Storm Bay [f] in 

 April 1792 and January 1793, the botanist Jacques Julien de Labillar- 

 diere (1755 — 1834) made the extensive collections which are the basis 

 of his Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen (vol. 1, 1804 — 06; vol. 2, 

 1806 — 07), a work arranged according to the LinnaEan sexual system 

 of classification. The eventful history of these specimens has been out- 

 lined by de Beer (1960: 45 — 68). Owing to divided Joyalties aboard 

 the French ships occasioned by the French Revolution Labillardiere 

 was interned in Java in 1794 and his collections were dispatched in 1795 

 to Holland aboard a Dutch ship which was captured by the British and 

 brought to London in November 1795. On the instructions of the exiled 

 King Louis XVIII they were presented to the Queen of England. Ulti- 

 mately, however, through the good offices of Banks, they were sent from 

 England to Paris, despite the political troubles of the time, and here 

 Labillardiere received them with joy. His strong curiosity checked 

 by his yet stronger sense of honour, Banks even refrained from examin- 

 ing them. They included many new genera and species, some of which 



