Botanical Discovery.'] INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



parts of Australia and Tasmania, but made no botanical collections. His excellent work 

 ' On the Physical Features of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land ' is full of valuable in- 

 formation on all branches of science. 



There are other private individuals of whose precise journeys I have no record, but who collected 

 well, and often largely, as Major Vicary, of the Bengal Army, who seems to have been a very acute 

 and indefatigable investigator of the New South Wales Flora, and a set of whose plants he has 

 transmitted to Kew ; Mr. Whittaker, who has sent valuable collections from Port Adelaide ; Mr. 

 G. Clowes, a gentleman who visited New South Wales for his health, and transmitted to Kew very 

 copious and fine specimens of New South Wales plants. Mr. Robertson and Mr. Frederick 

 Adamson, both settlers in Victoria, have formed very extensive and excellent collections there 

 between the years 1840 and 1855, which have all been sent to Sir W. Hooker. 



The llev. Richard H. Davies has discovered many curious and some new plants on the east 

 coast of Tasmania since the year 1833, which were communicated to Mr. Archer. 



Dr. Joseph Milligan, of Hobarton (now Secretary to the Royal Society of Hobarton), has, since 

 the year 1834, visited many parts of Tasmania, and made several most interesting discoveries, 

 especially on its loftiest mountains and east coast. 



Mr. Charles Stuart has been employed in Tasmania in collecting, at various times, chiefly, I 

 believe, for Mr. Gunn, ever since the year 1842. Many of his discoveries have been published by 

 Dr. Mueller, and are included in this work. 



Dr. Thomas Scott collected in Tasmania, and transmitted specimens to Sir W. Hooker about 

 1835. 



Mr. A. Oldfield (now, I believe, in Western Australia) has carefully investigated the Flora 

 of several parts of Tasmania, and especially of the Huon River, and has also ascended some of its 

 loftiest mountains. His name will be repeatedly found in the Tasmanian Flora, both as a zealous 

 collector and as a careful and acute observer. 



It remains only to mention my friend William Archer, Esq., F.L.S., of Cheshunt, who, after a 

 residence of upwards of ten years in Tasmania, during which he sedulously investigated the botany 

 of the district surrounding his property, returned to England in 1857, with an excellent herbarium, 

 copious notes, analyses, and drawings, and a fund of accurate information on the vegetation of his 

 native island, which have been unreservedly placed at my disposal. I am indeed very largely 

 indebted to this gentleman, not only for many of the plants described, and much of the informa- 

 tion that I have embodied in this work, but for the active interest he has shown during its whole 

 progress, and for the liberal contribution of the thirty additional plates,* all of which are devoted 

 to the Orchidem, and chieflj J made from his own drawings and analyses. 



As these pages were being prepared, I have received from Dr. Mueller an interesting botanical 

 account of the Paramatta district, drawn out by W. Woolls, Esq., a zealous Australian botanist. 



This brief notice would be neither complete nor satisfactory did it contain no allusion to the 

 important services rendered to the botany of Australia by a fe(v of its most eminent statesmen 

 and settlers, of whom I would specially allude to the late Sir John Franklin, to Sir W. Dennison, 

 Sir George Grey, and Sir Henry Barkly, as Governors, who have specially interested themselves 



* The grant of her Majesty's Treasury towards this work is wholly laid out in the payment of the illustrations. 

 and provided for only 170 of these. The remainder were defrayed out of a siun of £100, liberally placed at my 

 disposal by Mr. Archer, to be expended on the work. 



