THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN AUSTRALIA 29 
Passing to the Filicales, the President called attention to the 
considerable number of the relatively ancient eusporangiate forms 
present in the Australasian flora, and referred to recent work on 
many characters as possible. A great obstacle to such work i 
the prevalence of parallel development in phyla which are believed 
to have been of distinct origin. This has led to the inclusion in 
one and the same genus of forms which ha ave certain characters 
in common, but for which more careful study indicates a separate 
origin. Passing to the Angiosperms, the speaker emphasized the 
the far-reaching results of parallel development, and on the other 
the effects of great pemeh at the present day or in relatively 
recent times. He deprecated the method of those workers who 
started from pribohcapaana based upon limited ‘alsentslogionl 
data rather than from an intensive study of the living plants 
themselves. 
In conclusion, the President stated his belief that the preva- 
lence of parallelism and convergence is a strong argument in 
favour of the action of the environment in the genesis of inheri- 
table characters. He pointed out that the constitution of the 
higher plants and the higher animals is radically nannies in many 
points, and especially in the fact that in plants the generative 
cells are not segregated early from the somatic; argument from 
the one kingdom to the other are dangerous in the extre 
Mr. J. H. Maiden and Mr. R. H. Cambage sontebehed papers 
dealing with the structure and evolution of the genus Eucalyptus. 
The genus has existed in Australia since la te Hocene or early 
Miocene times, before the savelopdiat of the present mountain 
system, and when the climate was mild to warm. Various types, 
differing in form and arrangement of leaf, venation, bark characters 
a nature of ne essential oil, have been deve loped with changes 
known as the messmate (Z. ty (gra seachiea a aie rol 150 ft: 
i ( fire Btdeor _the oud _ 
(Z. goniocalyx), and the narrow-lea PP 
