Eizwmerative iN' otes on the Plants collected during Mr. John Forrest’s 
TnJoTioinetrieal Survey of the Kiehol Bay District duidnj, the 
year 1878, hy Baron Ferd. von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., Ph.D., 
F.R.S. 
The first accurate knowledge of the vegetation occurring in the country adjacent 
to Nickol Bay was obtained during Mr. Frank Gregory’s geographical expedition in 
1861, when Messrs. Maitland Brown and Pemberton Walcott secured a considerable 
number of plants, of which about 120 were early examined by myself and recorded in 
7th Vol. of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, p. 484-500 (1863). During the 
harassing duties of this first exploration of the country many of the species were 
obtained only in an imperfect state, but of these some became subsequently noted from 
augmented material secured during Mr. Ridley’s journey, or through the exertions of 
several correspondents of my own. Thus many more species became added cither in 
the extensive volumes of the Flora Australiensis, elaborated by Mr. G. Bentham through 
my collaboration, or became successively scattered through the Fragmenta Phytographiae 
Australiae. It was not deemed necessary to reiterate in the present list any of the 
species, which thus previously found their elucidation, although Mr. Forrest’s recent 
travels have given a much wider insight into the range of many particular species 
known from the district before. 
The collections which form the subject of the present document emanated 
largely from Mr. John Forrest himself, who, as Deputy Surveyor General of West 
Australia, conducted the recent most creditable surveys ; but his brother, Mr. 
Alexander Forrest, as well as Mr. H. S. Carey, augmented considerably the botanic 
material thoughtfully brought together also on tliis occasion. By these united efibrts 
a fact important for phytogcography has been established now, — that a considerable 
portion of the vegetation of Anihem’s Land and even of the back country of 
Carpentaria, extends as far South-west as the Nickol Bay District ; while again now it 
has also been shown, that some of those forms of plants, which impress on the more 
southern tracts of West Australia such a peculiar feature, spread (tliough only to a far 
more limited extent) northward so far as to meet many tropical forms in the regions 
near Nickol Bay. It docs not seem that in these instances of southern plants advancing 
thus far northward the as yet scanty overland traffic with flocks has been instrumental 
to their dispersion ; hut it may be readily foreseen, that in course of time pastoral 
wanderings will also in this part of Australia extend and speed the diffusion of many 
kinds of plants in a manner such as could not occur so long as merely the black 
aboriginal inhabitants roamed homeless over the soil. 
Among the plants of more than ordinary interest, now known from the country 
recently surveyed by Messrs. Forrest, the following are deserving of being specially 
adduced: — the real Caper-plant (Capparis spinosa) not specifically different from the 
Mediterranean typical plant ; the Strychnia-bush (Strychnos nux vomica) ; the ordinary 
Haricot Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), unless this should prove a stray plant from cultivated 
ground or it be accidentally cast about ; Hibiscus Goldsworthii, a highly ornamental 
shrub, now bearing the name of the Hon. Roger Tuckfield Goldsworthy, C.M.G., the 
