Australian F 'lowering Plants. 227 



by men, to Australia and New Zealand. Azorella appears to 

 have readied Australia and New Zealand from South America 

 by one of these means. Daucus also appears to have been 

 introduced into New Zealand and Australia from the north by 

 winds, by sea currents or by ancient man. 



From this it will be seen that the evidence favors the idea 

 that Umbelliferse is a family of great age which had its dwarfed 

 and open-country habit determined during a period of climatic 

 differentiation, antedating the isolation of Australia, and that 

 its great herbaceous and cold-country development is only of 

 relatively recent age. The origin of the order may be placed 

 far back, perhaps before the upper Cretaceous. 



A similar story is revealed by a study of the Ranunculacese, 

 the Magnoliacese, the Anonacete, and allied types. Caltha and 

 Ranunculus have had histories somewhat similar to that of the 

 types Aster-Olearia-Felicia, of Senecio, of Bettis-Brachycome- 

 Astranthium, of Fagus-Nothofagus, and of C ampanula-W ali- 

 lenbergia. In each case, with the exception of Fagus, the old 

 luxuriant and arborescent type of the mild moist regions of 

 the world has been altered to dwarfed and specialized types 

 which have spread north and south. These in turn have been 

 modified considerably during the severe climatic changes of 

 late and post-Tertiary time with a decidiious habit among the 

 trees, or a herbaceous development in the north and a xero- 

 philism adapted to subarid, icy, Or sandy wastes in the south. 



(e) The New Zealand Problem. 



Both this and the problem of the relation between Eastern 

 and Western Australia are too complicated to be discussed here 

 in detail and the briefest mention only is made of the subject 

 at this stage. The literature of New Zealand botany, however, 

 is voluminous and valuable owing to the labors of Hooker, 

 Kirk, Cockayne, Cheeseman, Thomson and others. 



In the remote past, perhaps in some portion of the Creta- 

 ceous Period, there appears to have been a land connection 

 between New Zealand and Northern Australia indirectly by way 

 either of Malavasia or New Guinea. The case for this prob- 

 able land connection has been stated ably by Hedley. 34 



Along this assumed land connection the earlier Araliacese, 



Leguminosie, Rubiacese, Composite, Myrtacea?, Cupuliferse, 



Coniferse, Scrophulariacese, and other families, may have 



passed. The isolation of New Zealand from the world was 



34 C. Hedlev, A Zoogeographic Scheme for the Mid-Pacific, Proc. Linn. 

 Soc. N. S. Wales, vol. xxv, pp. 391-417, 1899. 



