TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 575 
persist. The mean annual humidity is high, and the annual evaporation low as 
compared with other parts of the Commonwealth. V3 
(6) Hdaphic.—The soil of the three areas presents well-marked differences. 
The influence of man and of the domestic animals is everywhere manifest. 
Plant Formations.—The vegetation of the district is clearly divisible into 
three formations corresponding strikingly with the geologic formations. They 
would thus seem to be mainly determined by the soil conditions. 
(a) That of the basaltic area, a grass steppe with low herbs and a minimum 
of tree-growth, occurring in savannah form and in the river bottoms. 
(6) That of the Silurian area, a forest formation sometimes open but more 
often filled in with scrub and characterised by many species of Eucalyptus. 
(c) The flora of the Tertiary sands, marked by a predominance of Epacrids, 
myrtaceous plants, and terrestrial orchids, constituting a scrub heath in maquis 
and separated from the strand by a belt of higher scrub containing several tree- 
forms. 
(d) An association of halophytes peopling the strand and the salt-swamps at 
the mouths of watercourses. 
Census.—Lists of plants from the three formations show the greatest variety 
in the forest area where the most favourable and varied conditions exist, and the 
smallest total in the basaltic area. 
5. Australian EHbenacee. By W. P. Hiern, M.A., FBS. 
The ebony family is represented in Australia by nineteen species, out of about 
487 species in all. Twelve species are endemic in Australia. The Northern 
Territory, Queensland, and New South Wales supply the species. There are 
none in Tasmania. 
In my Monograph of Ebenacez, published in 1873, I included among 262 
recent species sixteen as occurring in Australia—ten of the genus J/aba, and six 
of Diospyros. 
Subsequent additions include two species, each contributing a genus to the 
Australian Flora. Royena villosa, a South African shrub, has been recorded 
from the Brisbane river in Queensland. WHuclea australiensis was described by 
me in the ‘ Journal of Botany,’ 1910, p. 159; the specimen was found among a set 
of Australian plants collected long previously by Sir T. L. Mitchell; it probably 
came from extra-tropical Queensland. A new species of Diospyros, D. longipes 
is the latest addition. 
In 1879 Hans Molisch published a paper on the comparative anatomy of the 
timbers of Ebenacez and allies; this paper included an account of the minute 
structure of the stem of M/aba obovata. 
In 1892 Paul Parmentier published a work on the comparative histology of 
Ebenacez; in this work he favoured the view that every good species can be 
easily defined by the epharmotic characters belonging to it. His researches dealt 
exclusively with the leaves and stems. With regard to the leaves the parts which 
he studied were: 1. The upper and lower epidermis. 2. The blade, sections 
being made at different places along it. 3. The mid-rib and lateral veins. 
4. The petiole, at the base of the blade, and in transverse sections. With regard 
to the stems, he studied all the tissues shown by transverse sections, and by radial 
and tangential sections of the liber and wood. Among the 120 species and 
varieties which he examined are Royena villosa, Maba rufa, M. buzifolia, 
M. obovata, M. geminata, M. humilis, M. reticulata, Diospyros Ebenum, D. laxa, 
D. montana, D. pentamera, and D. microcarpa. 
For the present paper numerous original observations have been made in order 
to test and extend the epharmosis of the Australian species. The pollen also 
has been observed and measured in the cases of the Royena and Huclea. 
According to Parmentier the two last-named genera are distinguishable from 
the rest of Ebenaceous genera by the periderm of the stem arising from the 
pericycle, instead of being sub-epidermal. 
Hypoderma (arranged in a single row in both faces of the leaves) exists 
in Maba humilis, in which species also the cells of each epidermis are undulate. 
Stomates are furnished only on the lower face of the leaves ; they are numer- 
ous and correspond to the Ranunculaceous type, and are mostly sub-epidermal, 
