1G President's Address 



chlamydea ; and it is intended to follow it up by a sixth 

 volume, containing the Monocotyledons and Ferns. A sup- 

 plementary volume will afterwards be probably issued, to 

 comprise the newer discoveries amongst cotyledonous plants, 

 for which the "Fragmenta" will afford the principal records. 

 This book will be the most complete descriptive work on the 

 vegetation of Australia, and with which, in its completeness, 

 no similar work on European vegetation can compare. You 

 will be glad to learn that the Cinchona (Peruvian bark) 

 plants are prospering. Dr. Mueller informs me they have 

 been exposed to extremes of temperature, varying from 30° 

 Fahr. last winter, to 100° Fahr. during this summer, in an 

 artificial fern gully in the gardens without injury; this gives 

 ample testimony of their hardihood, and their fitness for 

 coping with the much smaller vicissitudes they would be 

 liable to in the sheltered gullies of our mountain ranges. 

 The establishment of this most valuable plant is of the 

 utmost importance, and in a commercial point of view can 

 scarcely be over-estimated. There are now in the garden 

 nurseries a large number of plants of cork oaks, Western 

 Australia mahogany, tea, tobacco, coffee, and other pro- 

 minently useful plants, ready for planting in the valleys of 

 the Upper Yarra this autumn. 



Dr. Mueller made a botanical visit to Western Australia 

 during last year, and he informs me his principal object was 

 to connect the observations of the flora of that colony with 

 geological formation, in continuation of the many facts he 

 had traced out in other parts of Australia. An investi- 

 gation of the mutual relations existing between vegetation 

 and geological formations is' of great importance as bear- 

 ing on the general question of the occupation of the soil 

 for various purposes of culture. 



The Phyto-chemical laboratory under Dr. Mueller's direc- 

 tion is still engaged in researches into the technological, 



