184 Notes on South Australian Plants. 



The important bearings of the vegetation on the physical 

 character of a country are, I need not state, universally 

 acknowledged ; but the elucidation of plants becomes one 

 of double interest, when the country from whence they 

 originated possesses to so full an extent the charms of novelty 

 as the north-west tracts of the colony of South Australia ; 

 and in this instance I also felt that, whilst I endeavoured to 

 throw some faint additional light on the nature of the in- 

 terior lately explored, I was also sharing in the public ap- 

 preciation which in every way should reward the toils of 

 a traveller who, like Mr. Stuart, has already achieved, with 

 means scanty in the extreme, such great geographical dis- 

 coveries, and who amidst his cares and privations availed 

 himself of the opportunity of furnishing additional material 

 for our knowledge of the Australian flora. 



The collection placed at my disposal adds about sixty 

 species of plants to those obtained during Mr. Babbage's 

 expedition.* Of these several are perfectly new, and will be 

 a lasting record in botanical science of the exertions made of 

 late in South Australia to reveal a portion of the yet widely 

 unknown interior of this continent. 



The nature of the plants before us indicates at once that 

 they belong to a country devoid of high mountains. For 

 although some of the species are identical with those dis- 

 covered by Capt. Sturt, in 1845, at the Barrier Ranges, and 

 found also by myself in 1851, at the Flinders 5 and Elder's 

 Ranges, they still belong to the arid vegetation of which 

 also the treeless hills of the southern interior so much par- 

 ticipate. 



On the other hand, Mr. Stuart's journey has, first of all, 

 shown the occurrence within the South Australian territory 

 of several plants which are known to inhabit the periodically 

 dry stream-beds of tropical Australia, plants which appear 

 as harbingers of the flora of a country much less subject to 

 draught than the southern steppes of this continent. Thus 

 Dentellarepens,Forst.; Cleomeflava, Banks; Mukia scabrella, 

 Am.; iEschynomene Indica,L.; Flaveria Australasica, Hook.; 

 Cyperus angustatus, R. Br., are found unexpectedly repre- 

 sented in the more southern latitudes of Australia. 



On observing in Mr. Stuart's collection, also, several 

 characteristic plants brought by Mr. A. Gregory from 

 Cooper's Creek, we are led to suppose that a gradually rising 



* Report on the plants collected during Mr. Babbage's expedition, 1S5S. 



