FLORA OF TASMANIA. 
On the South African features of Australian Vegetation. 
The relations between the Floras of Australia and of the same latitudes in Africa, are of 
a very different character from those that exist between it and Polynesia, or India, etc., or even 
Europe; for whereas there is a very definable affinity traceable in the presence and abundance 
of some peculiar Orders, there is very little generic affinity in those Orders, and scarcely any specific 
identity. 
My data for the African Flora are chiefly derived from my friend Dr. Harvey's communications, 
his 'Genera of South African Plants/ Drege and Meyer's 'Zwei Prlanzen-geographische Docu- 
mente' (Flora, 1813), the Niger Flora, and the Natal, West African, and Mauritius plants in the 
Herbarium at Kew. 
With regard to the tropical Floras of Australia and Africa, their agreement is in rather less than 
300 genera, and in about 200 species that are without exception common to India also, and hardly 
any of which belong to those genera or natural families* that are characteristic of the South African 
or Australian Flora. This subject therefore requires no further illustration than it has received under 
the Indian chapter. 
With regard to the temperate South African Flora, it is perhaps as widely different from the 
tropical as the temperate Australian is from that of the Malayan Islands ; and an extraordinary 
number of species, many of thein belonging to a few genera and orders elsewhere rare, are massed 
towards the south extreme of Africa, and there confined to a tract of land of varying width, inter- 
posed between the sea and a desert interior. 
The most conspicuous characters that extratropical South Africa presents in common with 
Australia, are the abundance of species of the following Orders, many of which being shrubby, give 
in certain districts of each country a character to the landscape. 
Proteaceae. Polygalese. Rutaceae. 
Compositae. Restiaceai. Thymelew. 
Irideaa. Epacrideae, Ericeae. Santalace&\ 
Haunodoraceae. Decandrous Papilionacese and Anthospermous Rubiaceae. 
Buettneriaceae. tribes Podalyrieae and Lotese. 
All these Orders are far more abundantly represented in Australia (especially south-western) and 
South Africa than in any other part of the world, added to which by far the greater number of the 
known genera and species of Proteacea and Restiacece are confined to these two countries. Other 
marks of affinity are the Cycadete, the genus Encephalartos (to which Mueller reduces Macrozamia) 
being common to both; Cyphiacea (according to Brown a suborder of Goodeniaceat) are almost confined 
to South Africa. Numerous terrestrial Orchidece, Droseracea, Zygophyllece, Liliacea, Smilacece, and 
Capparidea ; the genera Pelargonium and Mesembryanthemum, besides Metrosideros, Actena, Tetrago- 
nla, Wtinmanaia, Sarcostemma, Sebaa, Cull it r is ~ Angn.Hlar'ta, Restio, Carpha, Uncinia, and Ehrharta. 
* As exceptions may rank the? few Protmcea said to exist in Abyssinia, which however belong to genera 
widely different from the Australian. The late Professor A. Richard gave me to understand (Preface to ' Flora 
. p. 210) that there were many representatives of the South African peculiarities in Abyssinia, 
s not so numerous as I was led to suppose. 
. one species of which is found in North Africa. 
