APPENDIX. 



697 



and inhabit similar looalitieg and soils. In the arid, 

 sandy districts of Australia, along the east coast, the 

 different species of epacria are as abundant as the 

 ericas are at the Cape of Good Hope. Their dry, rigid 

 leaves, brilliantly coloured petals, devoid of scent, 

 and hard woody stems, accord with the bright sunny 

 climate, and the unmarked character of the seasons. 

 The adaptation of these plants to a region where more 

 succulent herbs would soon wither and perish, is 

 beautifully illustrative of the provision of nature in 

 clothing the Australian wilderness with vegetation ; 

 while the facts that they flower in our winter gar- 

 Jens, when all European flowers are dead, and fade 

 in summer, when indigenous plants are in full bloom, 

 show that, although transplanted to the northern 

 hemisphere, where the seasons occur in opposite rota- 

 tion, they retain the wondrous principles of vegetable 

 physiology unaltered, which regulate the nature of 

 vegetation in the southern hemisphere ; a proof that 

 there is another and a higher principle controlling the 

 vitality of plants than heat, and its alternations of cold. 

 Nothing can surpass their beauty when seen growing 

 in the greatest luxuriance, amongst the rooky clefts 

 around the shores of Port Jackson. The traveller 

 who sees them for the first time would imagine that 

 he was trespassing upon some horticulturist's garden, 

 and had entered a choice collection of cultivated 

 flowers, when he had suddenly penetrated into one of 

 those flowery dells. 



Native Rose of Austkalia {Boronia serrulata), 

 Fig. 14. — For want of a better representative of the 

 "queen of flowers," the Australian colonists have 

 chosen this pretty little plant, which bears but a very 

 distant afiinity to the tnie rose. In like manner, 

 Oorrea speciosa, fig. 15, is named the Austbalian 

 FusoHiA, with perhaps a little closer resemblance to 

 its assumed prototype. This desire of giving familiar , 



names to the flowers of his adopted country, recalls 

 pleasing reminiscences to the colonist; but at the 

 same time it gives the inhabitants of the mother 

 country erroneous impressions of the character of 

 that exotic flora. Not only are the trees and shraba 

 very different in their nature from those of Europe, 

 but the specific characters of the herbs and grasses are 

 unlike any that are described in the British flora ; 

 and we question if there are more than twenty known 

 species of plants common to Australia, which are in- 

 digenous in Europe. This statement will convey the 

 extent of its meaning more fiilly, when we add, that 

 at present there is little short of 10,000 species known 

 to botanists, although not all botanically described. 

 The first botanist of repute who visited the shores of 

 Australia, and gave some account of its extraordinary 

 vegetation, was the late Sir Joseph Banks, who was 

 afterwards followed in his researches by the indefa- 

 tigable Robert Brown, at present chief botanical 

 curator in the British Museum. This gentleman 

 gave the result of his discoveries in a purely technical 

 work, published in Latin, as far back as 1810, wherein 

 he describes upwards of 4500 species, and which, from 

 the imibrage taken by its author at the severe criti- 

 cisms passed on his new views, and style of Latin, 

 never passed into a second edition, and may be con- 

 sidered a sealed book to the public at large. Since 

 that period very little has been done in describing 

 and illustrating the botany of that most interesting 

 region. Few genera have been added to the list givrai 

 by that eminent botanist, although Cunningham, 

 Labillardiere, and others, have more than doubled 

 the list of species. There is still a vast field open for 

 botanical discoveries in Australia, and a popular and 

 interesting history of its vegetation haa yet to be 

 given to the world. 



S. M. 

 4 I 



