THE 
AUSTRALASIAN SCIENTIFIC 
MAGAZINE, 
No. II. SEPTEMBER i, 1885. You I. 
DESCRIPTIVE NOTES ON PAPUAN PLANTS. 
BY 
BARON FERD. VON MUELLER, K.C.M.G., M. & PH.D, F.R.S., 
Etc. Etc. 
From 1875 to 1877 the writer of the present notes issued five small parts 
of a publication on “ Papuan Plants,” for which issue the material became 
directly available to him and this largely through the kindness of the 
Missionaries in the south-eastern parts of New Guinea. Since then the 
work was discontinued, not only because the access of actually new 
additional material proving scanty, but also because Dr. E. Beccari, who 
was personally engaged in Papuan Explorations, had commenced in 1877 
his learned and splendidly illustrated “ Malesia,” in which work the Papuan 
plants, gathered mainly by this distinguished naturalist, were to appear 
along with numerous others, obtained by him in the Sunda-Islands. 
Although now six parts of the “ Malesia” have appeared, the last in 1884, 
only a very limited number of natural orders became as yet investigated, 
which is not surprising, when the vastness of the material, accruing from 
Dr. Beccari’s long itinerations, is considered. Under these circumstances 
it seemed not advisable, to postpone Australian researches concerning the 
Flora of New Guinea any longer, merely on account of similar engagements 
of the Italian Phytographer, especially also as all our material here came 
from the south-eastern portion of the great island, whereas Beccari’s 
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