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
Of the Australian portion of Mimoseae, which (having been met with upon
all the coasts of the continent, and equally diffused in the interior)
forms a leading characteristic of its vegetation, upwards of fifty
species have been collected, in various stages of fructification; nearly
the whole of which are unpublished plants. Several of those discovered on
the north-western shores, and islands off the West Coast, being also
extremely curious in their general form and habits; and the existence of
a few appears limited to a solitary particular situation, and no one
species was observed common to those parts, and the opposite or eastern
shores of the continent.
The Papilionaceous division exceeds seventy species, two-thirds of which
belong to established diadelphous genera, found chiefly within the
tropic, where some, peculiar to Terra Australis, and heretofore limited
to the more temperate regions, have been discovered. Thus Hovea and
Bossiaea were detected in New South Wales, in latitude 20 and 22 degrees
South, as well as on the North Coast; the latter genus being likewise
found on the north-western shores, where also two species of Kennedia
exist; and Templetonia, a genus nearly related to Bossiaea, originally
discovered on the southern shores of Australia, is abundant on an island
off the West Coast.
Upon the North-west Coast, particularly in the parallels of 14 and 15
degrees South, where an exotic feature (if the usual characteristic of
the Flora of other countries might in this case be so termed) is as
manifest, and is as strongly blended with the pure Australian character
(Eucalyptus and Acacia) in its general vegetation, as on any other parts
of those shores; Jacksonia and Gompholobium, genera of Papilionaceae,
with distinct stamens, almost limited to the parallel of Port Jackson and
the South Coast, were observed: Daviesia, almost wholly restricted to the
higher Australian latitudes, has been remarked on the North Coast. Of
Lomentaceae, Bauhinia, Caesalpinia, and the emigrant genus Guilandina,
are all of intratropical existence in New South Wales, as also upon the
North-west Coast; but Cassia, although it has an equal extensive range in
the equinoctial parts of New Holland, has also been recently traced as
far in the interior, on the parallel of Port Jackson, as the meridian of
146 degrees East.
EUPHORBIACEAE. The Herbarium contains thirty-three plants of this very
numerous order, whose maximum seems decidedly to exist in India and
equinoctial America. The whole of the Australian species are referable to
established Linnean genera, of which Croton and Phyllanthus are most
remarkable and numerous, existing on all the intratropical shores of
Terra Australis, but by no means limited to them, both genera, together
with Euphorbia and Jatropha, being found in the parallel of Port Jackson;
and Croton exists likewise at the southern extreme of Van Diemen's Land,
which is probably the limit of the genus on that hemisphere.
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