BOTANY. 89 



confined to Tasmania. Unfortunately, it lives only at 

 a considerable elevation, and objects to cultivation. Cal- 

 litrts, of which we have two species, C. rhomboidea, distri- 

 buted also to South and East temperate Australia, and C. 

 ohlonga, confined to Northei'n Tasmania, together with the 

 curious little shrub, with minute crowded 4-rowed leaves, 

 Fitzroya archeri, belong to the Cypress section. The re- 

 mainder are all yews. Dacrydiuni franklinn, a noble tree 

 of the West and South-West, that yields the valuable Huon 

 pine, has minute overlapping leaves, and as minute few- 

 flowered cones. It is an excessively slow grower, and in- 

 habits only low-lying swamps; wherefore, its age of iiseful- 

 ness ia limited. Phyllodadus rhomhoidalis, the only Tas- 

 manian representative of the New Zealand genus, is a useful 

 timber-tree, but is seldom found of much size. The leajf- 

 like Cladoclia are somewhat the shape of the leaf segments 

 of Apium graveolens, whence the tree is locally known as 

 celery-topped pine. Podocarpiis alpina is small and pro- 

 cumbent, with yew-shaped leaves and red fleshy peduncles 

 to the solitary seeds ; Microcachrys tetragona is procumbent, 

 leaves minute four-rowed, and the cone many-seeded, the 

 bracts crimson and fleshy, the cone having the appearance 

 of a small crimson mulberry h in. long; Pherosphoira hooh- 

 arwna is very similar to Dacrydium franklinn, only dwarf, 

 and the cones have many scales of cartilaginous consistency. 

 These three are Alpine and endemic. In ferns, though we 

 cannot approach New Zealand, Tasmania is fairly well off. 

 Wc have about 70 species; most of them are confined to 

 New Zealand and Australia. None are endemic. Hy- 

 polepis tenuifolia and Polypodium punctatum run abso- 

 lutely into one another in our bush; also do Asplenium 

 bulbiferum, laxujn, hooherianum^ and facciduin, and some 

 forms approximate very nearly A. obtnsatiirn. Of tree- 

 ferns, we have Dicksonia antarctica, Alsophila australis, and 

 Cyathea cunninghami, and Todea barbata sometimes as- 

 sumes that form. Pteris aquilina, Asplenium tricho manes, 

 Gymnogramme rutcefolia, G. leptophylla, Aspidium aculea- 

 ttim, Gystopteris fragilis, Hymenophyllum tunbridgense, 

 and H. wilsoni, occur also in Europe. 



Space will not permit even a cursory glance at the lower 

 cryptogams; nor would such a glance be of any value, if 

 it did. 



