Australian Floioering Plants. 209 



excepting indirectly through the primary types of the cosmo- 

 politan tropics. 



The nature of this assumed land bridge has been emphasized 

 purposely here, because it seems that such bridge has been postu- 

 lated without sufficient attention being paid as to its nature. 

 The Proteaceae of South Africa and Australia both flourish on 

 the barren sandy wastes of these two countries in extratropical 

 areas, and the few luxuriant types of this family which occur 

 in the Australian brushes (jungle) belong to the suborder 

 Folliculares, and have no counterpart whatever in South Africa. 

 If then there did exist a land bridge which was used by the 

 types of Proteaceae common to South Africa and Australia, 

 then it must have been a sandy waste, and one therefore which 

 would have allowed a ready passage for the South African 

 Compositae, the Liliaceae, the Ericaceae (Ericeae), and the 

 Australian family Epacridaceae, and the tribes Leptospermeae 

 and Chamadaucieae in Myrtaceae. And, again, in addition to 

 this overwhelming evidence against the assumed existence of 

 the land bridge after the development of the most complex 

 types of flowering plants, there are the wonderful differences 

 existent among the mammals of the two countries which must 

 also be taken into account. South Africa possesses no mar- 

 supials, whereas Australia has no placentals. The answer to 

 this may be made that marsupials did migrate from Australia 

 to South Africa along the old sandy bridge used by the Pro- 

 teaceae, Restiaceae, Compositae, and a few small genera in Lili- 

 aceae, while other flowering plants which loved such sandy soils 

 could only look, as it were, towards the promised land from 

 the bridge without entering. It may be assumed also that the 

 waiting carnivora ate the unsuspecting marsupials as they 

 arrived in South Africa by way of the land bridge. The 

 wonder, in a case such as this, is that the lions, tigers, hyaenas 

 and other carnivores, which may be supposed to have annihi- 

 lated the marsupials in South Africa, did not follow such good 

 food along the bridge to Australia and there in turn feast upon 

 the defenceless wallaby, kangaroo, wallaroo, paddymelon, beilby, 

 kangaroo rat, opossum, and allied types. 24 



The evidence on the other hand suggests that the Proteaceae, 



like the marsupials, flourished in the northern hemisphere and 



were driven to "dead ends" in South Africa and Australia, 



and there, in each country, on the sandy soils and under very 



21 See also in this connection an admirable paper by Mr. J. H. Maiden, 

 entitled "Australian Vegetation," Federal Handbook on Australia, B. A. 

 A. S., Australian Meeting, 1914, by authority. 



