28 NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
CHAPTER III. 
Boronia and Pittosporum. 
T he Boronia, so popular in spring, with its dark 
brown flowers, yellow inside, and with its very 
distinctive fragrance, is one of the best known 
of Australian plants. This species comes from West 
Australia, and is one of those plants whose botanical 
name, like that of the Pittosporum, has become hap- 
pily familiar, requiring no so-called common name. 
Common names perhaps serve a useful purpose; but 
in many eases they are limited to a locality, and the 
same plant has frequently half a dozen common names 
in as many different localities, while the same com- 
mon name often does duty for half a dozen plants. 
The boronias belong to the Rutaceae family, and all 
members of this order have more or less pungently 
or strongly scented foliage, caused by the presence of 
small oil glands or vessels. 
There are eight or nine species of Boronia in Vic- 
toria, while in Australia there are over sixty, and 
they occur nowhere else in the world. With one 
exception — and that species has bluish flowers — all 
of our boronias have pink flowers. Boronia pinnata 
is our most distinctive species, being a robust shrubby 
plant, fairly tall with flne bright and large flowers. 
It is found in the south, largely in Gippsland. On 
one occasion I travelled through acres of this showy 
plant, near the Bemm River in East Gippsland. It 
