228 E. C. Andrews — The Geological History of the 



effected long before that of Australia, and forms such as 

 Coprosma and Celmisia were developed and sent out here and 

 there as waifs. Veronica, Epilobium, Senecio, Celmisia, 

 Raoidia. Cotula, Coprosma, Carm icluvlia, and Ranunculus, and 

 some other types underwent saltation during the late and post- 

 Tertiary revolutions in the topography while the great plateaus 

 and gorges of New Zealand were being formed. Types such 

 as Persoonia, Leptospermum, and others, may be considered 

 as descendants from Australian waifs. Azorella, Geranium, 

 Crantzia, and many other forms, appear to have reached ISTew 

 Zealand by way of cold or South America, through the agenpy 

 of sea currents, rafts, birds, or by other means. 



(/) The Development of Plants within Australia Subsequent to 

 the Isolation of the Island Continent. 



This is too large and important a subject to be discussed in 

 detail at this stage and may be dismissed in the present report 

 with the statement that Australia appears to have been stocked 

 with plants, both as luxuriant trees, as xerophytes, and as 

 dwarfed forms, during some distant period, which may be 

 conjectured as the upper Cretaceous ; that after the isolation 

 of Australia from the world generally, many of both the old 

 luxuriant types and the stunted forms were driven into the 

 sandy wastes of extratropical Australia and there, in their new 

 surroundings, they developed numerous xerophytic species, 

 many very large genera, numerous subtribes, tribes, and even 

 certain families, which from weak and modest beginnings, 

 gradually became hardy, vigorous, and finally aggressive, and 

 whose only real limits, indeed, in later days, were set by the 

 peculiar insular position of Australia on the one hand, and the 

 inability of the xerophytic growths to invade the jungle-laden 

 areas, on the other hand. During the later and post-Tertiary 

 Period, when the great plateaus and gorges of Eastern and 

 Southeastern Australia appear to have been formed, certain of 

 the endemic genera underwent saltation thus causing serious 

 confusion among the systematists, much in the same way as 

 Veronica, Epilobium, Carmich-celia, Coprosma, and other types 

 had caused trouble among workers dealing with the remarkable 

 ISTew Zealand flora. 



So complex and difficult did the problem appear that a 

 botanist so eminent as Baron Von Mueller proposed to solve 

 it by including numerous forms under one genus which 

 hitherto had been described under various genera and many 

 species under one species which previously had been described 



