194 



Flora and Fauna of Nuyt's archipelago, 

 no. 3.-a sketch of the ecology of franklin islands 



By T. G. B. OsBORN, D.Sc, 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Adelaide. 



[Read August 10, 1922.] 



Plates VIII. to XL 



The following sketch of the ecology of Franklin Islands 

 embodies the results of a brief visit paid to the group in 

 January of this year. It had been the intention of the party 

 to spend over four days ashore, but owing to adverse weather 

 delaying the ship the time" was reduced to two and a half ; 

 this shortage of time, and the season of the year, must explain 

 any obvious imperfections in the account. 



General. 



Franklin Islands (^^ form a small group consisting of two 

 main islands with some outlying rocks and islets lying in 

 lat. 32° 27' S., long. 133° 39' E., some 12 statute miles off 

 the nearest mainland. The largest islands are each about 

 one and a half miles in length, are flat-topped, and joined 

 together by a sand-bar which dries at low tide. The western 

 island is 159 ft. high and the eastern nearly the same height 

 A chain of rocks about one and a quarter miles in length, 

 some of which are above water and the highest elevated about 

 15 ft., lies about half a mile off, and nearly parallel to the 

 south coast of the western island. A pyramidal islet about 

 50 ft. high standing on a rock platform which dries at low 

 tide extending nearly 400 yards from it, lies 1,200 yards east- 

 ward of the eastern island (pi. viii., fig. 1). 



Though not, strictly speaking, a part of Nuyt's Archi- 

 pelago, the Franklin Islands were sighted from it by Matthew 

 Flinders in 1802 and were named by him. Flinders and his 

 party did not, however, land upon them. Had they done so 

 it is probable that Robert Brown would only have received 

 further confirmation of his opinion as to the sterility of the 

 islands along the central part of the south coast of Australia. (2> 



(1) Australia Directory, 10th edit., vol. i., p. 149, 1907. 



(2) Brown, R., Botany of Terra Australis. Appendix to 

 Flinders' Voyage, vol. ii., p. 534. Point Brown, one of the nearest 

 portions of the mainland to the east or Franklin Islands, was so 

 named by Flinders in February, 1802, in honour of Robert Brown, 

 naturalist on board the "Investigator." 



