1274 
SAP1NDACE.E OF AUSTRALIA. 
reckons some 40 species, chiefly tropical, one of vvhich (S. aus- 
tralis, Benth.) is endemic, unless indeed, as indicated in the Baron’s 
Census, the species should be referred to Atalaya. As in Australia 
Eucalyptus is the most characteristic genus of the Myrtaceaj, 
and Acacia of the Leguminosae, so Dodoncea represents most fully 
the Sapindaceje. The genus Dodoncm was established by Linnaeus, 
and when Willdenow published the plants of that most eminent 
man in 1799, D. viscosa, D. triquetra and D. angustifolia (the 
fli’st fromindia, the second from New Holland, and the third from 
the Cape of Good Hope), were the only known species. Now 
about 50 have been described, the greater number of which ax’e 
indigenous in Australia, and from the hop-like appearance of their 
fruits a)’e called “ Native Hops.” Though not in any way allied 
to hops truly so called, they are u.sed in parts of the interior for 
the preparation of yeast. Explorers in Australia refer frequently 
to the species of JDodoncea. Sir T. Mitchell, in his “ Tropical 
Australia,” records ten species ] and Baron Mueller, in his 
“ Botanical Report on Gregory’s Northern Expedition,” mentions 
nine ; whilst in a late number of his Fragmenta, Vol. ix., he has 
described some new species and given the geographical limits, so 
far as known, of the genus in Australia. As regards the distri- 
bution of the species of Dodoncm, it would be interesting to trace 
its relation to the origin and migration of the flora generally. 
Sir J. D. Hooker, in his elaborate essay on “ The Flora of 
Austi’alia, its Origin, Affinities, and Distribution,” suggests 
that the massing of most of the peculiar features of the 
Australian Flora in the west, unmixed there with Poly- 
nesian, Antarctic, or New Zealand genera, is an argument 
for regarding Western Australia as the centrum of Australian 
vegetation, whence a migration proceeded eastward; and the 
eastern genera and species must in such a case be regarded as 
