Australian Flowering Plants. 213 



The true asters number 300 species and are herbaceous, lov- 

 ing cold countries, crossing the Equator only as one species on 

 the high plateaus of Africa. Closely allied to the asters is 

 Olearia (110 species) in Australia and ISTew Zealand, not herbs, 

 but generally shrubs or undershrubs with a few trees of moder- 

 ate size. The shrubby South African Felicia, with about 50 

 species, is exceedingly close also to Olearia and Aster while the 

 arborescent Chiliotrichium of 3 or 4 species in Chili and the 

 arborescent to shrubby Diplostephiiim of about 20 species in 

 the Andes, are also very close to Olearia and Felicia. The 

 arborescent genera C ommidendron (3 species) and Melanoden- 

 dron (1 species) also in St. Helena are scarcely separable from 

 Diplostephiiim in South America. The aster type is absent 

 from the tropics except on the high plateaus. 



Erigeron, Celmisia, Tetramolopium, Vittadinia, and Ter- 

 ranea, form a group very similar in distribution to the asters. 



The daisies also have a peculiar geographical distribution. 

 Bellis with about 5 species, in Europe and Worth Africa, 

 Astranthium 1 or 2 species in America, Seubertia, 1 species in 

 the Azores, Steirodiscus with 2 species in South Africa, are 

 all practically identical as genera with Brachycome which pos- 

 sesses 40-45 species in Australia, the tropics having no member. 



Calotis (17 species in Australia), Bellium (3 species in 

 Europe), Keerlia (2 species in Mexico), Garuleum (3 species in 

 South Africa), and Minuria in Australia are exceedingly close 

 both to each other and they are close also to Bellis. 



The Groundsels. Senecio contains 1,200 species and is "cos- 

 mopolitan and ubiquitous" (Bentham). It abounds "in local 

 species in almost every region of the globe, in the Old and in 

 the ISTew World, from the Equator to the arctic regions and the 

 extreme south, on Alpine summits, in stony wastes or sandy 

 deserts, in swamps, on sea coasts, on the borders of streams . . . 

 yet individually the species have not wide areas. ISTo species 

 is common to the ISTew and the Old World, except in the far 

 north no one has ... its range interrupted by any considerable 

 interval." 29 



Although the majority of the northern hemisphere Composite 

 are herbaceous, as are those also of the deserts and subarid 

 wastes, nevertheless the southern hemisphere and the oceanic 

 islands preserve many arborescent forms representing all 

 the larger tribes such as Asteroidese, Senecionidese, and 

 Helianthoidea?. 



29 G. Bentham, The Compositae, Journ. Linn. Soc. London, Botany, vol. 

 xiii, p. 456, 1873. 



