5 
it reaches here its most southerly limits. The seeds of this Sterculia were used for food in 
Dr. Leichhardt’s expedition, and “ produced not only a good beverage with an agreeable 
flavor, but also appeared to be very nourishing.” 
By a circuitous route along the Tambo to the south, and steering thence once more 
easterly, I reached, in the middle of March, the country beyond the mouth of the Snowy 
River, the most southerly locality in which palms exist in the Australian Continent. The 
vegetation here assumes, at a latitude nearly equal to that of Melbourne, at 37° 30' S., 
entirely a tropical character, with all its shady groves of trees producing dark horizontal 
foliage, — so rarely to be met with in Australia, — with all those impenetrable and intricate 
masses of parasites and climbers overrunning the highest trees, and with so many typical 
forms never or but rarely transgressing the torrid zone, unless sheltered against the cold 
and under the favorable influence of the mild humid atmosphere of the coast tracts. The 
stately Corypha palm or Livistonia Australis, one of the “ princes of the vegetable world,” 
attains here the height of more than sixty feet, and may be deemed one of the most useful 
productions of our Flora, furnishing in its young leafstalks and terminal bud the palm 
cabbage, a food equally wholesome and delicious, whilst the fan-shaped leaves are eagerly 
collected for the manufacture of hats. The occurrence of so many plants of a really 
tropical type, as Cissus Australasica, Cocculus Harveyanus, Celastrus Australis, Tristania 
laurina, Acmena floribunda, Morinda jasminoides, Tylophora barbata, Marsdenia rostrata, 
Smilax spinescens, Eustrephus latifolius, &c., bears a sufficient testimony not only to the 
geniality of the climate, but also to the capablity of the soil in this district. Transitions 
to the Flora of New South Wales where here perceptible everywhere. 
After a short journey to the Buchan River, I returned home, in consequence of the 
early commencement of the rainy season, in the middle of April, having traversed the 
country in various directions to the extent of more than 2500 miles. How far the material 
for the Flora of Yictoria has been enriched during this journey, may be observed by 
referring to the annexed enumeration, which comprises, in addition to those plants brought 
forward in my last year’s report, 391 Dicotylcdoneae, and 105 Monocotyledonese, of which 
nearly the fourth part was formerly unknown. Thus also 130 genera and 20 natural orders 
of cotyledonous plants have been incorporated into our Flora, one of the latter, Meni- 
spermeae, formerly foreign to Australia. Ten of the additional genera were also formerly 
unknown in this part of the globe (Myosurus, Cocculus, Ilutchinsia, Ammannia, Glinus, 
Celastrus, Centella, Erigeron, Antennam, Udora) ; whilst six others are either entirely new 
or hitherto undescribed (Asterolasia, Halothamnus, Eriochiton, Osteocarpum, Juncella, 
Electrosperma). Others again were previously thought to be confined to Van Diemen’s 
Land, together with some here also indigenous Mammalia, amongst the latter the Tasmanian 
Hysena (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Tiger-cat (Dasyurus maculatus). 
The entire sum of species contained in the accompanying list, comprising, for the 
first time also, the lower Cryptogamic orders, amounts to 726, with 250 additional genera, 
by which the number of Victorian plants enumerated last year will be advanced to nearly 
1700 really indigenous species, comprehending 680 genera and 134 natural orders,— numbers 
to be considered already as proportionately high for the extra-tropical latitudes and the 
areal of this Colony. It is probable that these comprise more than three-fourths of the 
indigenous plants, if the fungi are excluded, of which it is yet impossible to ascertain the 
number with any approach to correctness. In the compilation of that part of the catalogue 
which contains the lower Acotyledoneae I have enjoyed the services of some botanists of the 
highest rank, who made these branches of phytology their more exclusive study, and whose 
assistance I most gratefully record on this occasion. Messrs. Hampe and C. Muel er 
performed the examination of the Mosses; Professor Al. Braun that of the Characese, a 
Dr. W. Sonder, for the greater part, that of the Algae. I have further to acknow e ge e 
aid which I experienced in the classification of others of these subtile plants fiom * 
Harvey, of King’s College, Dublin, who intends to pursue his algological researc es unng 
Botany. — b . 
