PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OP THE AUSTRALIAN FLORA. 109 



liave gained a more honourable reputation in tlie paths of 

 science than Robert Brown, and his name will ever be asso- 

 ciated with the Flora of Australia in the appropriate terms by 

 which he designated many of its genera. Contemporaneously 

 with this distinguished man, GEORGE Caley was sent out to 

 New South Wales by Sir Joseph Banks, and resided in the 

 colony from 1800 to 1810. During that period he collected 

 400 species of plants, and advanced farther into the 

 interior than any previous explorer, having penetrated as 

 far as Caley's Repulse (near the present Nutnantia) some 

 years before the Blue Mountains were crossed by Wext- 

 WORTH, Blaxland, and Lawson. His correspondence with 

 Banks is preserved in the Brahourne Papers. It is 

 recorded of him that "his primary duties in New South 

 Wales were the collecting of plants for his patron 

 and seeds for the garden at Kew ; but so greatly did he 

 extend his field of action that the most splendid portion of 

 the Museum of the Linnean Society consists of quadrupeds, 

 birds, and reptiles, collected by his indefatigable energy." 

 Brown named the genus Caley a after him '^ as a skilled and 

 accurate botanist." 



The surveys of Admiral KiNG in the intertropical and 

 western coasts of Australia between 1818 and 1822 did much 

 to promote the advancement of botanical knowledge. More- 

 over, and at the especial request of Sir Joseph Banks, 

 Allan Cunningham accompanied the expeditions and made 

 valuable collections of plants, especially on the North- 

 west shores of Australia. His remarks on these plants 

 appended to King's voyages reveal a multitude of new forms 

 hitherto imknown to science. The interior of the colony 

 having been opened up by the passage over the Blue Moun- 

 tains in 1813, Cunningham was able to penetrate farther into 

 the interior than any of his predecessors, and whilst OxLEY 

 was tracing the Laclilan and Macquarie Rivers, he traversed 

 1,200 miles and collected 450 species of plants. But Cmming- 

 liam was more than an accomjDlished botanist, and as an 

 enterprising explorer must ever rank amongst those who have 

 exerted themselves to extend the geographical knowledge 

 of the continent. His discoveries in the northern parts of 

 the colony, now part of Queensland, tended to facilitate com- 

 munication with what was then called " the back country " 

 and to prepare the way for profitable settlement. He was 

 not, however, fortunate in his relations with the Colonial 

 Government of the day, Governor Macquarie having failed 



