DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE LEGUMINOS&, 389 
and the Hurasian steppes to North America, and thence 
along the Andes to Chili. It does not occur in Australia, 
probably because of its origin in the extra-tropical regions 
of Kurasia, and its inability to reach Australia across the 
tropics by reason of the absence of plateaus. Like the 
phyllodineous Acacias of Australia, it is a grand example 
of a type which has become aggressive after its adaptation 
from a tropical form to an inhospitable environment. 
Carmicheelia is one of the few endemic genera of Legu- 
minosze in New Zealand. It is a modification of a form 
allied to Sesbania, which reached New Zealand either by a 
tropical land route, or as a sea waif. Originally it was 
probably a luxuriant type, but the subarid land formed by 
the uplift of the New Zealand Alps in late geographical 
time offered a fine field to potential xerophytes and the 
leafless Notospartium and Corallospartium, as also the 
practically leafless Carmichelia, appear thus to have 
originated. 
According to Cheeseman (25) Carmichelia has twenty- 
one, Corallospartium one, and Notospartium two species. 
Had New Zealand been as large as Australia, with a similar 
climate and soil, it is probable that Carmichelia would 
have become a vast genus, comparable in size with the 
phyllodineous Acacias. 
Swainsona and Clianthus have their home in Australia, 
but possess one endemic species each in New Zealand. 
Streblorhiza, an allied genus, is found in Lord Howe Island. 
Clianthus appears to be a genus which commenced in the 
tropics and thence passed southwards. It is a decadent 
type which possesses only two species, one of these being 
a desert form in Australia. 
Five, therefore, of the seven indigenous genera of Legu- 
minose in New Zealand belong to the Galegew; another, 
namely, Canavalia, is a marine waif; and the seventh, 
