PREFACE. 
The ' Flora of Tasmania ' completes the series of works on the Botany of the " Antarctic 
Expedition," with the publication of which I was entrusted by Her Majesty's Lord Com- 
missioners of the Admiralty in 1843. Of these, the First Series, on the Botany of the 
Antarctic Islands, was completed in two volumes, with two hundred plates, in 1847 ; when 
the work was interrupted by my being sent on a Botanical mission to India by Her Majesty's 
Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 
During my absence on that mission the rapid progress of geographical discovery in our 
southern Colonial possessions, the increased exertions of our Botanical correspondents there, 
who were stimulated by the prospect of a speedy publication of their discoveries, and the 
activity of the officers of several surveying expeditions, had combined to augment the amount 
of materials to be examined and described for the Second and Third Series which comprise 
the Floras of New Zealand and Tasmania, to an extent so many times greater than had ever 
been contemplated, that I had no choice but to abandon the original plan of making complete 
Floras, or to devote a great deal more time to them than I had ever proposed to expend. 
My Publisher, Mr. Reeve, having offered to enlarge the Floras as much as I should find 
necessary, free of all cost to myself, I had no hesitation in adopting the latter alternative ; 
and whilst still engaged on the publication of the New Zealand Flora, I had the unexpected 
gratification of receiving from the Governor and Parliament of Tasmania the announcement 
that they had unanimously awarded me a grant of £350, in consideration of my services in 
the investigation of the Flora of the Southern Hemisphere, especially that of Tasmania. At 
the same time I received the most encouraging assistance from my friend William Archer, 
Esq., of Cheshunt, Tasmania, who forwarded to me a beautiful series of drawings of Tasma- 
nian Orchids, together with £100 to be expended on the Flora; and he soon afterwards 
arrived himself in England, and rendered me still more valuable aid by his observations and 
collections, which is duly acknowledged in the body of this work. I have thus been enabled 
greatly to extend the letterpress and illustrations of this Flora, by putting figures of many 
more species on the plates ; making the descriptions fuller, adding thirty plates, including 
sixty species, chiefly of Orchidea (of many of which Mr. Archer had prepared the drawings), 
and by appending 130 pages devoted to general considerations on the Botany of Australia 
