188 FOREST CXJLTUEE AND 



minosse, and ProteaccB, in south-west Australia, are 

 also charming. The introduction of all these into 

 European conservatories might be made the object of 

 profitable employment. Annual herbs of extreme 

 minuteness, belonging chiefly to Compositae, Umbelli- 

 ferss, Stylideae, and Centrolepideas, are here, as in oth- 

 er parts of extra-tropical Australia, in their aggregate 

 more numerous than minute phanerogamic plants in 

 any other part of the globe. A line of demarcation 

 for including the main mass of the south-west Austra- 

 lian vegetation may almost be drawn from the Mur- 

 chison River, or Shark Bay, to the western extremity 

 of the Great Bight ; because to these points penetrates 

 the usual interior vegetation, which thence ranges to 

 Sturt's Creek, to the Burdekin, Darling, and Murray 

 rivers, while the special south-west Australian flora 

 ceases to exist as a whole beyond the limits indicated. 

 The marine flora of south - west Australia is like- 

 wise eminently prolific in specific forms, perhaps more. 

 so than that of any other shore. Many of the algse are 

 endemic, others extend along the whole southern coast 

 and Tasmania, where again a host of species proved pe- 

 culiar ; some are also extra- Australian. The whole 

 eastern coast contrarily, and also the northern and the 

 north-western, with the exception of a few isolated 

 spots, such as Albany Island, contrast with the southern 

 coast as singularly poor in algse. In a work exclusively 

 devoted to the elucidation of the marine plants of Aus- 

 tralia—a work which as an ornament of phytograph- 

 ic literature stands unsurpassed, and which necessitat- 

 ed lengthened laborious researches of its illustrious 

 author, the late Professor Harvey, here on the spot — 

 the specific limits of ngt less than eight hundred algae 



