Art. I. — The Phanerogamia of the Mitta Mitta Source 

 Basin and their Habitats. 



By James Stirling. 



[Read 20th April, 1882.] 



In my recent paper on the topography of the Australian 

 Alps, in outlining proposed physiographical researches in the 

 Omeo district, I intimated my intention to submit a subse- 

 quent paper on the geological structure and botany of the 

 Mitta Mitta Source Basin (there topographically described). 

 I regret not having been able to complete observations on 

 the geological structure of this area sufficient to enable me 

 to correctly delineate it, but in the meantime submit the 

 following description of the phanerogamia, or flowering 

 plants, together with a collection of dried specimens repre- 

 senting the different orders most prevalent. 



A glance at the map of Victoria will show that the Mitta 

 Mitta Source Basin is bounded by watershed lines ascending 

 to the highest peaks and plateau in the colony. It conse- 

 quently embraces hypsometrical zones of vegetation, rising 

 from the gigantic eucalypts, prolific amid the shaded slopes of 

 our Victorian Cordillera, through dense masses of arboreous 

 shrubs clothing the moist head of gullies at higher eleva- 

 tions, and again, through undulating uplands covered with 

 patches of heath-like plants, dwarfed arboreous shrubs, and 

 open pasture lands to the grassy moorlands of the highest 

 snow-clad plateaux. 



In submitting the following descriptions of native flower- 

 ing plants, I desire to state that they do not include the 

 whole of the phanerogamia of this portion of our Austra- 

 lian Alps, but simply represent a collection made by me, 

 according as time and circumstances permitted during the 

 past three years. I have also restricted my remarks to 

 species verified by our eminent botanist, Baron von Mueller, 



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