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XV. — On Ausiraliaa and Tasmanian Umbelliferous Plants. 

 By Dr. Ferdinand Mueller, Government Botanist of 

 Victoria. 



Op the numerous paradoxical plants whicli characterize the 

 Flora of Australia to such a great extent, those of the 

 Umbelliferse are not the least interesting ; and I beg to 

 review briefly on this occasion the various members of this 

 order, which, through the exertions of many a naturalist, 

 became successively known from Australia and Van 

 Diemen's Land. 



In Labillardiere's Novce HoUandics Blantanim Specimen, 

 (published in 1804), we meet with the first account of the 

 curious genus Actinotus. He describes and figures also Baucus 

 bracMatiis Sieber, (under the name Scandix glocJddiataJ , 

 Apium prostrat'icm (the native celery), Bryngium vesicii- 

 losum, and three species of Trachymene as Azorellas, to 

 which genus, indeed, they are closely allied. In 1805 a 

 second species of Actinotus from New South Wales was 

 defined by Sir James Smith with the original one, under 

 the name of Briocalia, but it was reduced to the older 

 genus of Labillardiere by the illustrious Robt. Brown, in 

 his appendix to Capt. Flinders^ voyage (1814). To Rudge 

 we owe in a paper issued by the Linnean Society of London, 

 (1811), the proper definitions of the genera Trachymene 

 and Xantkosia, and Sprengel, Sieber, and De CandoUe added 

 to the former genus, Cavanilles having previously referred 

 one species to Azorella. Achilles Richard added (in 1820) to 

 our knowledge of these plants various species of Hydrocotyle, 

 principally supplied by Robt. Brown ; and Allan Cunningham 



