Fauna and Flora of New Zealand. 427 
known of Cretaceous age, but in the Eocene vegetable remains 
have been found in New South Wales which, according to 
Baron von Miller and Baron von Ettingshausen, are all 
extinct forms but little allied to the present Australian flora ; 
for with Pittosporum, Knightia, and tour kinds of Eucalyptus 
there occur birches, alders, oaks, and beeches; while in Vic- 
toria extinct tropical trees are found which resemble those of 
Asia. The fossil plants mentioned by Mr. Darwin at Geil- 
ston Bay, near Hobart, in a freshwater limestone of probably 
Miocene age, are also very different from those now living in 
Tasmania. They belong, as Mr. Darwin says, to a lost vege- 
tation *. They represent willows, birches, alders, oaks, and 
beeches, along with Coprosma, Araucaria, and others. They 
are more characteristic of Australia than are the Eocene 
plants; but still both are much nearer to the Tertiary floras of 
Europe, Asia, and North America than to the recent Austra- 
lian flora. In beds of newer Pliocene age plant-remains have 
been found both in New South Wales and in Victoria, and 
these, according to Baron von Miiller, are allied to the present 
flora of Eastern Australia. What a contrast to New Zealand 
is here! The present flora of Eastern Australia does not date 
beyond the Phocene period, previous to which the country 
was covered by a lost vegetation allied to the Tertiary floras 
of Europe and Asia; while in New Zealand, as we have just 
seen, the present flora dates from the Cretaceous period. 
Mr. Wallace has given a very simple explanation of these 
curious facts. The Australian flora, he says, consists of two 
large divisions :—(1) the characteristic Australian flora, which 
is chiefly temperate and hardly represented in New Zealand ; 
and (2) a tropical flora, which is less in number than the first, 
is closely allied to the floras of India and Malaya, and has 
many representatives in New Zealand and in South America. 
Western Australia has no European, Antarctic, or South- 
American types, but it is far richer than Eastern Australia 
in true Australian forms, many of which are only found there. 
He also points out that a submarine ridge, nowhere more than 
1000 fathoms below the present sea surface, runs from New 
Zealand to Northern Queensland, and that the distribution of 
the Cretaceous rocks in Australia proves that at that period 
the sea flowed over the centre portion of the continent, 
dividing the east from the west. rom these facts Mr. Wal- 
lace infers (1) that the submarine ridge between New Zealand 
and North-eastern Australia was elevated above the ocean at 
the same time that Central Australia was submerged; and 
* Volcanic Islands,’ p. 140. : 
28 
