1234 president's address. 



species of Cnpania extends to Victoria, the great majority of the 

 species being semi-tropical. Trematocaryon McLellani found in 

 the auriferous drift of the Pliocene formation in the same locality 

 belongs apparently to the Sapindacete and yet no genus now existing 

 in Australia is represented by it. In all probability it flourished 

 under climatic conditions very different from those now prevailing. 

 Rhytidotheca Lynchii (a fossil found under similar circumstances) 

 may have belonged to some plant of the Meliaceie, though at the 

 present day no genus of the order is found in Victoria, the species 

 occurring for the most pai^t in the Northern District of New South 

 Wales and Queensland. Baron Mueller remarks in reference to 

 this fact that 'The newly discovered remnant of a past Flora 

 indicates a clime formerly warmer and more humid and equable 

 than that of the spot where now vestiges of extinct forests are 

 buried.' Celyphina McCoyi had a fruit resembling Helicia jyrcealta 

 of the Proteacese from the warmer parts of eastern Australia. 

 Odontocaryon is unlike any existing genus ; but Conchotheca 

 rotundata from the Pliocene formation at Nitingbool seems very 

 like some extinct species of Grevillea of that section now exclu- 

 sively tropical. Eisothecaryon semiseptatum, found at Gulgong 

 in the Upper Pliocene layers, comes very close to Villaresia, 

 a genus now represented in Eastern Australia by two 

 species, the one in Queensland and the other not known farther 

 south than Clarence Eiver. Araucaria Johnstonii of Tasmania, 

 found imbedded in the yellow Tertiary freshwater limestone near 

 Hobart, is supposed to be allied to A. Cunninyhami, " the Moreton 

 Bay Pine," a species ranging from Queensland to the Hastings 

 and Clarence. A. BidwiUi or " The Bunya Bunya " is peculiar to 

 Queensland, and A. excelsa to Norfolk Island. The occurrence of 

 an Araucaria in Tasmania is highly inteiesting, and as it has been 

 found in company with fruits of plants exhumed from the gold 

 drifts of Victoria and N. S. Wales, it may well be associated with the 

 Floi-a of the past as indicating a warmer climate in Victoria and N. S. 

 Wales. The wood and fruit of Banksia and the foliage of Eucalyptus 

 obliqua were enumerated by Prof. McCoy, from auriferous drifts, 

 but as these are probably identical with living species, the Ptev, W. 



