o 
The total of our Sunday visitors to the southern ground during 1859, irrespective 
of those who enter by the smaller gates, was 160,220 ; the number of visitors at the 
northern ground during seven months was 41,035. The aggregate of visitors during week 
days may be regarded as nearly equal to that of the Sundays, so that probably the total has 
rather exceeded than fallen short of 300,000 during the past year. 
Anxious to render the establishment one of not less utility than one of healthful 
recreation and agreeable information, we have endeavoured to furnish from hence as 
extensive supplies as possible. * Thus, on ninety-one occasions, boughs and flowers for 
decoration have been furnished for public festivals, and not less than 20,438 plants, 
2406 cuttings, and 44,572 papers of seeds have been distributed, either to public gardens 
and reserves, or to donors entitled to supplies by reciprocation, or in our maintaining or 
initiating an interchange with similar institutions abroad ; and means have been adopted to 
render similar supplies available next season. Besides several thousand lots of seeds 
gathered in the establishment have been re-soum in this garden. 
A list is added to this document of such plants as were imported or raised during 
the season ; and although some contained in the catalogue of the previous year are lost, 
particularly many of the annual plants, which are always an uncertain possession, there are 
also still many other young plants cultivated, which, on account of having been received 
without accurate appellations, could not yet be examined and enumerated. The total of the 
species in our possession may therefore be approximately estimated at 4500, numerous 
additional varieties uncounted. 
The curator, Mr. Dallachy, was engaged from July, 1858, till February, 1859, in 
collecting plants and seeds on the rivers Murray and Darling, the collections formed having 
proved not only valuable for adding to our varieties of such ornamental plants as are calcu- 
lated to resist the drought, but also as comprising many species previously nowhere under 
cultivation, and therefore highly acceptable for continuing the interchange with the gardens 
of Britain, the colonies, and foreign countries. 
By this journey the material for the elaboration of the work on our native plants 
became also augmented, as may be observed by referring to the appended list of new 
Victorian plants. 
We being further desirous of adding to our collections both of cultivated and dried 
plants, Mr. Augustus Oldfield proceeded to the northern districts of Western Australia, 
from whence he recently returned after an absence of seventeen months. The phytological 
features of that part of Australia have not merely the charm of novelty, but furnished also, 
as was anticipated, a clue to the scientific interpretation of several plants, which under a 
rather similar clime vegetate in the north western desert of Victoria, and are therefore of 
importance for the elucidation of our own flora. Dr. Beckler, supported like Mr. Oldfield, 
only with such slender means as this department could afibrd, has undertaken the botanical 
examination of the “ brush country” situated within the systema of the rivers l\JcLeay, 
Hastings, Richmond, and Clarence, and is to accumulate also for our public collections, plants 
from the hitherto little explored alpine and subalpine ranges, in which these rivers rise, and 
will thereby afibrd the means of ascertaining the relation which exists between these plants 
to those of the Victorian Alps. 
Thus it is steadily kept in view to bring into our possession an herbarium as complete 
as possible for the future elaboration of an universal descriptive work on the vegetation of 
Australia ; and I am gratified to state, that of late a much more general interest has been 
evinced for investigations into the Australian flora, a work so gigantic, that without the 
co-operation of circumspect observers in many distant localities, it will be long before it can 
advance to perfection. Most particularly am I under obligation to W. Woolls, Esq., of 
Paramatta for contributing an almost complete collection oi the plants occurring in his 
vicinity ; to Dr. Milligan and Mr. Oldfield for plants from Tasmania, to Dr. Beckler from 
subtropical East Australia, to Messrs. Walcott for plants from near Shark’s Bay, to Mr. 
No. 37, a. 
