COLONIAL FLORAS. 
503 
1. He finds from it that some of the species, as Geranium dissec- 
tum , are described as appearing under a totally different form in the 
Southern from what they do in the Northern hemisphere, and that 
these forms would not have been considered conspecific but for the 
fact of intermediate states being preserved in intermediate localities. 
2. That other Southern species approach so nearly to boreal ones, 
that some of them have been considered by previous observers to be 
identical with them, and are with difficulty separated by Bentham 
himself; as Cardamine tenuifolia , which closely resembles C. pra- 
tensis, and is only distinguished by a character which is valueless in 
the very next species (C. Jiirsuta) ; Stellaria Jlaccida , which in like 
manner (but on less good grounds), was regarded as a variety of 
S. media; Ranunculus plebeius, which is surely nothing but a 
southern form of JR. repens ; and Palaver horridum , which comes very 
close indeed to the European P. dubium. 
3. That there are several genera so rare and obviously alien to the 
South that their presence there is in every way anomalous; as the genus 
Anemone , with but one species, which is confined to one small spot in 
Tasmania; and Caltha, which affects only the tops of the Tasmanian 
and Victorian Alps, and that these and others rather represent rem¬ 
nants of a different vegetation, than types created for special circum¬ 
stances. 
These certainly are strong points in favour of Mr. Darwin’s hypo¬ 
thesis, in so far, that by them he would rivet each link in the chain of 
of his arguments with a bolt of undoubted strength and proved 
value, and we shall anxiously scan the future volumes of Mr. Ben- 
tham’s work for further proof, or the contrary, of the general 
proposition his theory assumes. 
The number of Indian species described for the first time in the 
‘ Elora Australiensis’ as Australian, together with the not inconsider¬ 
able reduction of small Australian genera to larger genera of wider 
distribution, relieve the Australian Elora, as represented in this 
volume, of much of the excessive peculiarity formerly attributed to 
it. Thus, out of the 243 genera, only about 80, or one-third, are 
exclusively Australian, or confined to Australia and New Zealand: 
but of these genera 28 include no less than 500 species, and amongst 
them are not only the largest genera in the Elora, but those which 
give most character to the vegetation. Such are— Hibbertia (67), 
Candollea (15), JBlennodia (11), Marianthus (16), Tetratheca (18), 
Comesperma (21), JRulingia (13), Tliomasia (25), Lasiopetalum (20). 
The six Butaceous genera, Zieria , JBoronia , JEriostemon , Phebalium, 
Asterolasia and Correa (together including 124 species), iStackJiousia 
(10), the four Bhamneous genera, Pomaderris, Trymalium , Spyridium 
and Cryptandra (including together 69 species), and Dodoncea , with 
38 peculiar species. 
Altogether, about one-fourth of the species described in this 
volume were unknown to science previous to Dr. Mueller’s and Mr. 
Bentham’s investigations ;• most of the former author’s new species 
