AUSTRALASIAN BOTANICAL NOTES I. QUEENSLAND 
AND NEW SOUTH WALES 
Douglas Houghton Campbell 
(Received for publication April 3, 1922) 
The botanist coming to Australia from Europe or America is at once 
impressed by the almost complete absence from the native flora of any 
plants that seem at all familiar. If he is acquainted with the Mediterranean 
regions or California, he recognizes the eucalypts and Acacias, so commonly 
planted in those regions, and perhaps he may know a few other characteristic 
Australian plants that have been introduced into the warmer parts of 
Europe and America, such, for example, as Leptospermum, Melaleuca, 
Callistemon, Grevillea, and others; but all of these belong to families either 
quite absent from the northern hemisphere, or very scantily represented 
there. It is evident that the vegetation of subtropical and temperate 
Australia has very little in common with corresponding latitudes in the 
northern hemisphere, and that it indicates a very ancient separation of these 
two regions. 
The relations of the principal land masses in the southern hemisphere 
within the temperate zone are very different indeed from the corresponding 
latitudes at the north. Instead of the practically continuous land areas of 
the northern Eurasian and American continents, there are the relatively 
small and widely separated areas of Australasia, South America, and South 
Africa. Not only are these entirely separated from each other, but a broad 
belt of open ocean lies between them and the Antarctic continent, instead 
of there being a direct connection with the polar regions such as obtains in 
the northern hemisphere. As none of these land masses extends into really 
Antarctic latitudes, and as they are largely surrounded by water, only in 
the Antarctic continent itself are there to be found regions of severe frost, 
except at high elevations. In consequence of the prevailing temperate 
climate, mild winters are the rule, and evergreen vegetation prevails for the 
most part. Very rarely is the deciduous habit developed, and where this 
occurs it is due, not to cold, but to drought. 
Of the three principal south-temperate regions, that of Australia is 
much more isolated than that of either South America or South Africa, this 
being especially true of Western Australia, where the peculiarly Australian 
vegetation reaches its culmination; and this region shows, perhaps, the 
highest degree of endemism known anywhere. As might be expected, the 
south-temperate zone has a less uniform flora than that of the north; but 
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