18 Descriptive Notes on Papuan Plants. 
present pages, I have alluded to this scattered material with a 
desire, to facilitate therehy reference to the literature concerning 
New Guinea plants. As far as yet can he judged from the 
rather limited collections, which hitherto could be formed by 
collateral unaided exertions of the missionaries, the vegetation 
in the south-eastern part of the great island assumes a very 
different aspect to that of the north-west, a,s there revealed by 
(he Frencli and particularly by the Dutch naturalist. Sundaic 
forms seem to prodominiite in the regions facing the Moluccas 
;uk1 r]iilip])ine-lslamls almost to the exclusion of others, tliougli 
rlie very recent discovery of an Araucaria on Mount Arfak by 
the illustrious Dr. Beccari introduces also there already a partly 
Australian type into the almost Moluccan vegetation. The case 
in the south-east of New Guinea appears to be decidedly different; 
there pure Australian forms arc at least to a small degree mixed 
into the Malayan vegetation, which latter flourishes also exten- 
sively in Northern and in tropical Eastern Australia. The 
occurrence of a Banksia and phyllodinous Acacia, together with 
Eucalypts, establishes clearly a close alliance of one 2 >ortion of 
the jdants of the south-eastern regions with tliat of Australian 
j)hy8iognomy. How far this somewhat enigmatic distribution of 
genera and even of species — thouglit to be endemically Australian 
— can be explained perha])s by geologic considerations, we have as 
yet no moans of ascertaining. Of still higher interest than this 
question remains the investigation of the sub-alpine and glacier- 
flora throughout the wide chains of the lofty Papuan mountains. 
e are utterly unacquainted yet with any plants from the Snowy 
Mountains there, though their comi^arison with the alpine forms 
of vegetable life occurring in the icy highlands of Australia 
ex])lored by myself, of Tasmania and New Zealand mainly 
described by Dr. Hooker, as well as their collation on the other 
hand with the largely peculiar vegetation of the higher zones of 
the Himalaian ranges and of any al^jine mountains of the large 
islands in the Indian Archij)elagus, will likely lead to manifold 
