84 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
difficulties to the work of collecting. All zones of plant life are 
here represented, from the Alpine vegetation to the luxuriant 
and varied flora of the tropics ; and it is a record of which we 
who have made Australia our adopted home may be reasonably 
proud that so many species, totally different in so many respects 
from those included in other and better-known floras, have been 
so closely observed and so carefully and accurately described. 
When we consider that there are countries—each with a history 
going back far beyond the commencement of the Christian era, 
each the birthplace of generations of eminent scientific men— 
that have never yet had their floras described as systematically 
as ours, we cannot but feel the deepest admiration for the 
scientific genius, perseverance, and research by means of which 
such splendid results have been achieved. Australian botanical 
science presents an illustrious roll of indefatigable workers. 
It is a matter of great regret that so many of the names 
bestowed on native plants and animals by the pioneer settlers 
are singularly inappropriate. Thus “ Gum-tree ” is the colonial 
name for all species of Eucalypts. The Banksias are known as 
“ Honeysuckles.” Our native “ Fuchsia ” is a Correa belonging 
to the Butacece. Exocarpus cupressiformis is the native 
“Cherry.” “She Oak” is the name given to some of the 
Casuarinas, whose cone-like fruits are called “ Oak-apples.” 
Australian “ Tea-trees ” are members of the order Myrtacece , 
and include plants belonging to the genera Melaleuca and 
Leptospermum , while “ Native Hops ” represent various species 
of Dodoncea and Goodenia, or maybe Daviesia latifolia. And 
so this list might be almost indefinitely extended. 
The flora of Australia presents many peculiarities, of which 
much capital has often been made. Thus our trees are, many 
of them, peculiar in giving but little shade. Some are leafless. 
Our Cherry is stated to grow its stone outside the fruit—really 
on a succulent fruit stalk—while our Pear ( Xylomelum pyri- 
forme ), one of the Proteads, is not only wooden but reversed on 
its stalk, and our Nettle assumes the proportions of a fair-sized 
tree up to 100 feet in height, and so we might go on. 
The first thing that will probably strike a botanical observer 
in Australia is the great extent and wide distribution of its 
forests, composed chiefly of Eucalypts, which form the principal 
timber vegetation of the continent with perhaps the exception 
