Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822King, Philip Parker
History
Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822
King, Philip Parker
Australia -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Australia
To Corypha, Seaforthia, and Livistona, the only three genera that have
been enumerated in the productions of the Australian Flora, may now be
added Calamus; of which a species (discovered without fructification, by
Sir Joseph Banks, during the celebrated voyage of Captain Cook) has at
length been detected bearing fruit in the vicinity of Endeavour River.
The existence of this palm, or rattan, on the East Coast, to which it is
confined, seems almost to be limited to an area within the parallels of
15 and 17 degrees South; should, however, its range be more extensive, it
is southerly one or two degrees, in which direction a remarkable primary
granitic formation of the coast continues, throughout the whole
neighbourhood of which is a peculiar density of dark moist forest,
seemingly dependent on it, and evidently indispensable to the life of
this species of Calamus; but at the termination of this geological
structure, it most probably ceases to exist. A dioecious palm of low
stature, and in habit similar to Seaforthia, was detected in the shaded
forests investing the River Hastings, in latitude 31 degrees South,
bearing male flowers; but as it may prove to be a dwarf state of a
species of that genus, which has lately been observed, with all its
tropical habits, in a higher latitude, it cannot now be recognised as a
sixth individual of the family whose fructification has been seen.
Although this order has been observed to be sparingly scattered along the
line of East Coast almost to the thirty-fifth degree of south latitude,
its range on the opposite shores of the continent is very limited. Upon
the North-west Coast, the genus Livistona alone has been remarked, in
about latitude 15 degrees South; beyond which, throughout a very
extensive line of depressed shore, towards the North-west Cape, no palms
were seen. If the structure of a coast, and its natural disposition to
produce either humidity or drought be consulted (a point, with respect to
this order, as well as certain other tropical tribes, appearing very
important) those portions of the western shores recently seen, indicate
no one character that would justify the supposition of the existence of
the Palmae in the corresponding extremes of the respective parallels that
produce them on the opposite or East Coast. Another remark relative to
the economy of this family is, that in New Holland it seems confined to
the coasts, Corypha australis, so frequent in particular shaded
situations in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson, having never been
detected in the vicinity of, or upon the mountains, much less in the
distant country to the westward of that extensive boundary.
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