58 



CONTEIBUTIONS TO THE PHYTOGEAPHY OF 

 TASMANIA. 



By Baron Feed, von Mueller, C.M.G., M.D., F.E.S. 



ni. 



The material for tliis third unpretensive addition to the 

 literature on Tasmanian plants has gradually been brought 

 together from various sources. It was intended to offer this 

 new contribution some considerable time ago, but the 

 harassing anxieties which arose during the last few years in 

 the writer's official life, and the impediment which thu3 

 occurred to his work in all directions, must plead excuse for 

 the retarded appearance of this record of all those plants, 

 placed so kindly at his disposal by several disinterested con- 

 tributors. Some of the Algae now specially mentioned as not 

 known from Tasmania at the time when Dr. Jos. Dalton 

 Hooker's great work appeared, were already recorded in the 

 magnificent volumes of the late Dr. Harvey's Phycologia, on 

 the scientific elaboration and artistic embellishment of which 

 work he spent also on Tasmanian shores many of his valuable 

 days. These Algae, for completeness sake, have been 

 admitted into the present supplementary list, along with more 

 recently discovered species, on the examination of which the 

 great authority of Professor Dr. J. Agardh, of Lund, was 

 brought to bear. For quotations and arrangement, the 

 writer of these lines is responsible. Circumstances over which 

 he had no control, frustrated his plans to visit Mount 

 Humboldt and the surrounding Alps for new observations ; 

 but he trusts to traverse these secluded highlands, which seem 

 yet to promise much addition to our knowledge of the Tas- 

 manian vegetation, during the approaching spring or summer. 

 Much has also yet to be learnt respecting the geographic 

 range of the rarer species of plants of the island ; and this 

 can only be accomplished by the local exertions of intelligent 

 and observant inhabitants in their respective districts. By 

 the formation of general collections in various localities, the 

 rare species would gradually become better known as regards 

 their natural distribution and their distinctive characteristics ; 

 moreover, the writer will always feel pleasure to examine 

 collections so formed, and place such observations thereon, as 

 may be of interest or novelty, before the Tasmanian Eoyal 

 Society. Thus also additional material would be obtained for 

 the universal work on Australian plants, for the elabora- 

 tion of which he has spent almost all his spare hours and his 

 worldly resources, in the great land of our southern homes 

 for the last twenty-six years. 



