NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
9 
Introduction. 
By Professor A. J. Ewart, 
Government Botanist for Victoria, and Professor of Botany 
and riant Pathology at the Melbourne University. 
N othing is more striking to a European botanist 
visiting Victoria for the first time, than to find 
so many plants which he has long known as 
beautiful garden or greenhouse exotics, carefully 
tended and highly prized, growing wild in profusion 
in Victoria, and frequently regarded locally as little 
better than weeds. To some extent this is the result 
of the human tendency to value that which is rare 
and to depreciate that which is common, regardless 
of actual merit. As many of our most beautiful wild 
flowers are now much more uncommon than formerly, 
or are even in some cases nearing extinction as wild 
plants, this cause of lack of appreciation should be 
less active than formerly. The issue of a book such 
as the present one is therefore peculiarly opportune, 
and should not only give those already interested in- 
formation which they need, but should encourage 
others to make more use of native plants in their 
gardens, and perhaps to develop further the beauties 
which so many of them already possess. A great 
field lies open for garden lovers in the cultivation of 
our native plants. In nature, striking artistic 
effects are often produced by flowers in themselves 
of no special size, brilliancy, or beauty, simply by 
