319 



A glance at a map of Australia will show that, with the exception of Tasmania, the boundaries of 

 the States are almost entirely artificial and not physical ones. If we contemplate the central State, South 

 Australia, its boundaries between Western Australia on the one hand, and Queensland, New South Wales, 

 and Victoria on the other, consist entirely of straight lines, while most of the dividing line between New South 

 Wales and Queensland is similarly artificial. Nevertheless it is found convenient in practice to register the 

 records of species according to the political divisions, and later on, vague as these records are, and must be 

 as the interior boundaries are approached, it will be found that they will facilitate the definition of truly 

 scientific botanical areas, on ecological and other lines. Much more attention requires to be paid to the work 

 of defining the range of individual plants, and it would be desirable to see established throughout the continent 

 agencies or outposts in touch with organisations for the record of official or unofficial botanical survey. 



Australia has been divided by Gregory ("Geography — Structural, Physical, and Comparative," pp. 258 

 and Plate xxix) into three main divisions — 



1. The Western Plateau. A vast plateau which comprises more than the western half of the continent 

 formed of very ancient rocks, and which does not appear to have been below sea-level during recent 

 geological times, except in the north-western part. On the north-west and south of the Australia coast, 

 plains skirt the foot of the plateau, containing marine rocks of several distinct periods. Owing to the arid 

 nature of the climate in the interior, the surface of the remains of the plateau is generally level. 



2. The Great Plains, extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria across the continent to the Southern 

 Ocean, between the mouth of the Murary and the coast of western Victoria. 



3. The Eastern Highlands, which occur between the Great Plains and the eastern coast ; they extend 

 from Cape York Peninsula on the north, to Bass Straits on the south, and are continued still further by the 

 island of Tasmania. A smaller highland area joins the western plateau in the vicinity of Spencer's and 

 St. Vincent's Gulfs as far as Lake Torrens, the Flinders Range being the highest land. 



Griffith Taylor has put the classification into a somewhat different form — 



(a) The Eastern Highlands. 



(b) Murray-Darling Lowlands. 



(c) South Australian Highlands and Rifts or the Cambrian Divide. 



(d) The Great Artesian Basin. 



(e) The Great Tableland or Plateau Region." 



See also Griffith Taylor's recent subdivision into " Climographs " at p. 239, 

 Part LXVI. 



2. Western Australia. 



Mueller (with coadjutors). ' Western Australia. General information respecting 

 the present condition of Forests and Timber Trade of the southern part of the colony, 

 together with a report on the Forest Resources of the colony by Baron von Mueller," 

 Perth, 1882. The report was previously published by L. Reeve & Co., London, in 

 1879. 



Diels, L., and Pritzel, E., Fragm. Phytogr. Austr. Occidentalis, in Engler's Jahrb., 

 xxxv, p. 434 (1905). 



The following is a translation of the notes on Eucalyptus in this admirable 

 work : — 



System and Range. — Many authors have written about the extraordinary difficulties of the systematic 

 treatment of the genus, and it is not our intention in this place to contribute to the discussion of critical 

 points. We refer the reader to the literature, and confine ourselves to some notes on the systematic 

 character of the Western Australian Eucalyptus Flora in connection with its distribution. In this 

 connection one can distinguish several groups : — 



1. Pan- Australian group, which are West Australian forms only slightly different from the species 

 of the east; for example, E. rostrata and its allies, the tree which forms the " Gallerei-Walder " (following 

 the courses of streams). 

 B 



