relations between the vegetation of Australia and that of any other part of the globe, it is certainly with the districts of Southern Africa which lie near the Cape of Good Hope that Australia exhibits the greatest affinity. It would seem as if these two continents in some remote age had not been separated, as they now are, by "leagues of salt water," but that their vegetable species had been able to propagate themselves freely from the one to the other. According to Richard, the approximative number of species distinguished by botanists amounts to about five thousand; but so many discoveries have been made of later years, that we may raise the estimate to seven thousand. While the Australian plants are distributed among numerous families, each of the latter comprises but a very limited number of individuals. The predominant plants belong, in the main, to these families or orders:--Leguminosæ, Compositæ, Myrtaceæ, Gramineæ, Cyperaceæ, Filices, Proteaceæ, Epacridæ, Orchidaceæ, in a proportion which varies, moreover, according to the various districts explored. The fertility of the soil, and the climatic conditions of the southern shores of the Australian continent, are highly favourable to the introduction of new species. Our English settlers have availed themselves to the utmost of this circumstance, and have cultivated on a large scale all the most useful fruit trees and vegetables of Europe, and others imported from tropical climes; so that mingled in the same prolific gardens may be seen the fig-tree and the banana, the guava, the orange-tree, the olive, and the apple--cabbages, potatoes, turnips, peas. Even the vine has been successfully naturalized, and its manufactured products are not inferior in excellence to the famous Rhenish wines. [Illustration: VEGETABLE LIFE IN VICTORIA. 1. Rosea gracilis (_Arundo conspicua_). 3. Hectia Pitcairniæfolia. 2. Astelia Banksii. 4. Xanthorrhoea arborea.]