HISTORY OF BOTANY IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.* 



Botanical research in South Australia begins with the arrival of 

 Robert Brown as botanist to Flinders' voyage of discovery in the 

 Investigator. His first landing in this State was at Fowler's Bay 

 on January 29, 1802. He also botanised at various islands on the 

 AVest Coast, and reached Port Lincoln on February 24. Mount 

 Brown, near Port Augusta, was ascended and named after him. The 

 eastern end of Kangaroo Island was explored on two visits in March 

 and April. Speaking of Robert Brown in the preface to the "Flora 

 Australiensis, ' ' Bentham says: "He seems during his short visits 

 often almost to have exhausted the flora of the points he touched 

 at." Brown, who was 28 years old when he landed at Fowler's Bay, 

 was accompanied on the Investigator by Ferdinand Bauer, a young 

 Austrian botanist, who had joined the expedition as "natural history 

 draughtsman." The results of Brown's collections along almost the 

 whole coast of Australia were published by him in the "Prodromus 

 Florae Novae Hollandiae," London, 1810. This work laid the 

 foundation of Australian systematic botany and also of that world- 

 wide reputation which its author subsequently attained. He died in 

 London in 1858. 



At the same time that Flinders was sailing eastwards, a French 

 scientific expedition under Baudin was approaching from the west, 

 and the ships met in Encounter Bay on April 8, 1802. The botanist 

 of the French expedition was Leschenault de la Tour, and he also 

 collected on Kangaroo Island, at Port Lincoln, and at Nuyts 

 Archipelago during 1803, but on his return to Paris he did not 

 describe his Australian specimens. A few of them were subsequently 

 dealt with by other French botanists. The earlier French expedition 

 in search of La Perouse, under the command of D 'Entrecasteaux 

 (1791-94), did not touch at any point on the shores of South Australia. 

 The talented botanist of that expedition, Jacques-Julien Labillardiere, 

 described and figured several South Australian species in his "Novae 

 Hollandiae plantarum specimen" (2 vol., Paris, 1804 and 1806), 

 although the actual types were gathered in West Australia and 

 Tasmania. 



After these early maritime expeditions, botanical research in 

 South Australia was not resumed, with one exception, until after the 

 foundation of the province in 1836. The exception was a passing 

 visit paid to Kangaroo Island in 1823 by William Baxter, a gardener 

 sent out by an English firm to collect seeds and roots. The illustration 

 of Correct pulchella in Sweet's "Flora australasica " (1827-28) is 

 from a plant raised from seed collected by Baxter on Kangaroo Island. 



Captain Charles Sturt left Adelaide in 1844 to explore the interior 

 of the continent. He discovered and crossed Cooper Creek, passed 

 the Stony Desert which will always be associated with his name, and 

 penetrated some distance into southern Queensland. A great drought 

 prevailed, and he returned to Adelaide in 1846, almost blind through 

 the trials he had undergone. Nevertheless, he made -a botanical 

 collection, which was described by Robert Brown in an appendix to 

 the "Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia," London, 

 1849. 



* See also a paper entitled ' ' A Century of Botanical Endeavor in South Aus- 

 tralia," read by J. H. Maiden, F.L.S., at the meeting of the Australasian Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science in 1907. It contains a wealth of information, 

 and I am much indebted to it. 



