xcn FLORA OF TASMANIA. [On the 8. African features 



§ 11. 



On the South African features of Australian Vegetation. 



The relations between the Floras of Australia and of the same latitudes in Africa, are of 

 a very different character from those that exist between it and Polynesia, or India, etc., or even 

 Europe; for whereas there is a very definable affinity traceable in the presence and abundance 

 of some peculiar Orders, there is very little generic affinity in those Orders, and scarcely any specific 

 identity. 



My data for the African Flora are chiefly derived from my friend Dr. Harvey's communications, 

 his ' Genera of South African Plants/ Drege and Meyer's ' Zwei Pflanzen-geographische Docu- 

 mente' (Flora, 1843), the Niger Flora, and the Natal, West African, and Mauritius plants in the 

 Herbarium at Kew. 



With regard to the tropical Floras of Australia and Africa, their agreement is in rather less than 

 300 genera, and in about 200 species that are without exception common to India also, and hardly 

 any of which belong to those genera or natural families* that are characteristic of the South African 

 or Australian Flora. This subject therefore requires no further illustration than it has received under 

 the Indian chapter. 



With regard to the temperate South African Flora, it is perhaps as widely different from the 

 tropical as the temperate Australian is from that of the Malayan Islands ; and an extraordinary 

 number of species, many of them belonging to a few genera and orders elsewhere rare, are massed 

 towards the south extreme of Africa, and there confined to a tract of land of varying width, inter- 

 posed between the sea and a desert interior. 



The most conspicuous characters that extratropical South Africa presents in common with 

 Australia, are the abundance of species of the following Orders, many of which being shrubby, give 

 in certain districts of each country a character to the landscape. 



Proteaeese. PolygalesB. Rutacea?. 



Composite. Restiacefe. Thymeleae. 



Irideoe. Epacrideas, ErieesB. Santalaeese. 



Hajmodoraceae. Decandrous Papilionaceae and Anthospermous Rubiaeese. 



Buettneriacese. tribes Podalyriese and Loteae. 



All these Orders are far more abundantly represented in Australia (especially south-western) and 

 South Africa than in any other part of the world, added to which by far the greater number of the 

 known genera and species of Proteacete and Restiacece are confined to" these two countries. Other 

 marks of affinity ai-e the Cycadece, the genus Encephalartos (to which Mueller reduces Macrozamia) 

 being common to both; Cyphiacea? (according to Brown a suborder of Goodeniacece) are almost confined 

 to South Africa. Numerous terrestrial Orchidece, Droseracea, Zygophyllea, Liliacece, Smilacea, and 

 Capparidece ; the genera Pelargonium and Mesembryanthemum, besides Metrosideros, Accena, Tetrago- 

 nia, Weinmannia, Sarcostemma, Sebcea, Callitris,f AnguiUaria, Restio, Carpha, Uncinia, and Ehrharta. 



* As exceptions may rank the few Proteacea said to exist in Abyssinia, winch however belong to genera 

 widely different from the Australian. The late Professor A. Richard gave me to understand (Preface to ' Flora 

 Antarctica,' vol. ii. p. 210) that there were many representatives of the South African peculiarities in Abyssinia, 

 but I mid they are not so numerous as I was led to suppose. 



f I include Frenela aud Widdringtonia under Callitris, one species of which is found in North Africa. 



