EBPORT. 
The botanical collections formed during Mr. Babbage’s recent expedition into 
the N.W. interior of South Australia having been submitted by the Government to my 
examination, I deemed it desirable to furnish a complete list of all the species of plants 
■which the herbarium contains ; for although the number of the previously unkno-wn 
genera comprised in the collection is limited to three, and that of the species to seventeen, 
there is still great interest attached to the remainder of the plants, either on account of 
their rarity, or in respect to the singular variations of form, -which, in the arid tracts 
■where they -were gathered, some of the species assume. ^ 
Moreover, the complete index, it -was thought, -would convey a more compre- 
hensive idea of the vegetation which clothes the barren interior of South Australia, 
than the sketches furnished of it on a former occasion.* 
Glancing over the material thus placed at our disposal, we learn, that the 
peculiar vegetation which characterizes the country along the Lower Muiray, the 
Lower Darling, Spencer’s Gulf, and Lake Torrems, still received little alteration, and 
that but few plants indicate an approach either to the Brigalow vegetation, which 
extends from the Kiver Bm-dekin to the Upper Darling, or to the Flora of the tropical 
interior, whil.st the collection proves almost devoid of any S.W. Australian plants, 
except such as are widely diffused over the continent. 
The south-western limits of the Brigalow vegetation-f- we ma}"- consider now as 
fixed ; Apophyllum, Steeleckia, Eremophila Mitchellii, certain species of Capparis and 
Geijera, and other prominent features of those shrubs, cease either near Mount Serle, 
or towards Mount Mm-chison, or already on Cooper’s Kiver. 
Of exclusively or principally tropical genera, the folio-wing attain, in the regions 
lately explored, their southern limit, viz. : — Polycarpaja, Trichodesma, Sarcostemma, 
C3moctonum, Monenteles, Pluchea, Crotalaria, Rostellularia, and Glossogyne, 
Amongst the few Western Australian plants noticed towards Spencer’s Gulf, 
although only in part obtained dui-ing the expedition, the following deserve notice ; — 
Templetonia retusa. Hibiscus hakeaefolius. Hibiscus multifidus, Anthocercis anisantha. 
As far as the material, gathered during the journey, admits of judging, it appear/?, 
that plants of the order compositm maintain their supremacy over aU others, a circumstance 
rather remarkable when contrasted with their paucity in the northern interior of the 
continent. Salsolaceous plants, which render so many parts of the desert available as sheep 
pasture, are perhaps in no part of the globe so rich in species than around Lake Torrens, 
and the zygophyllaceous and cruciferous orders of plants are likewise comparatively well 
♦ See vegetation of the districts surrounding Lake Torrens, in Hooker Kew, Miscell. 1853, p. 105, seqq. 
t See Botanical Rep^t on the No;rth Australian Expedition in the Proceedings of the Linnseau 
Society, 1868. 
