As particularly noteworthy should first be mentioned, that in conformity with the
volume on
a dozen decades of the 'Iconography of Australian
s'
has been issued by Baron von Mueller within the year under the aid of Mr. G. Luehmann,
the drawings and the lithographing throughout being by Mr. R. Graff. What makes this
large contribution to pictural illustrative Botany all the more remarkable is the
absolute originality of the work, none of the 120 species of Australian genuine
s, — thus already delineated, — having ever been depictured before.
This can be said of but few works in the whole range of botanic literature within
the precincts of one genus. Pallas' Species Astragalorum published in 1800
certainly illustrates about a hundred species partly of
and partly of
, but only scanty analytic details are given. Boissier's Icones Euphorbiarum published
in 1856,
also exhibit about 120 species of that genus, but the Iconography of Australian
s is to be extended to about 80 congeners more,
as gradually the material may be completed, Baron von Mueller never publishing pictures
of any plants without giving analyses from bud to embryo. Boott's extensive work 'Illustrations
of the genus Carex,' published between 1858 and 1867,
contains however 600 plates; but in many cases more than one plate is devoted to
a species and of numerous of the species, illustrated, pictures appeared previously
in other works. Baron von Mueller's intention is to elaborate now delineatively next
the about 120 species of Australian
,
so many of our 'Saltbushes' being highly valuable for pasturage, he foreseeing that
in time the most nutritive kinds will have to be methodically reared on the cattle
and sheep-runs.
His dichotomous key,
we learn, has now been printed about three-fourth, all the orders, all the genera
and most of the dicotyledoneous species having passed through the press. Though the
completion of the descriptive volume of the work became unavoidably delayed, this
finally now proves a gain, because he found that to render such a publication really
useful, he had to combine the brief dichotomia of the characteristics with a kind
of abridged descriptive flora, a task almost doubly as great as such would prove for
the whole British flora. Some progress has been made with descriptive elaboration
of Australian plants, and it is hoped that when the more urgent work, just now requiring
attention, shall have been finished, both Australian and Papuan plants will more extensively
come under examination than latterly was possible. Since the last Victorian edition
of the 'Select plants for Industrial Culture and Naturalisation' did appear in 1885,
much additional information has been collected for a new issue of this work,
which will be brought out in time, to be used for the Centennial Exhibition.
Another supplement to the census of Australian plants is due also, and indeed the
manuscript ready for it.
A wish has been expressed by some of the few, who are here particularly engaged in
the study of avascular plants, that a descriptive volume concerning them should be
prepared for Australia purposely or at all events for Victoria. The list of the evasculares,
given in the eleventh volume of the fragmenta phytographiae Australiae 1881,
comprises 3516 species; since then vast additions have accrued in this direction
of research; so that, if even the descriptions were reduced as in Kuetzing's classic
work 'species Algarum'
and the synonymy and records of special localities mostly omitted, we would still
require for the evasculares of ail Australia a volume quite as large as that given
in 1849 by the venerable author above mentioned, whose 80 years' jubilee was celebrated
a few months ago.
But if the descriptions and quotations are to assume the extensiveness of detail
displayed in the meritorious volume on the 'Lichen-Flora of Great Britain and Ireland,'
by the Rev. W. A. Leighton, who devoted the spare time of half a century to the elaboration
of this work,
— then we would need now already for Mosses, for Lichens, for Fungs, and for Algs
a volume each, to elucidate the Australian plants of these four large orders of vasculares,
or two good sized volumes for Victoria alone. It seems therefore to our Gov. Botanist
advisable, considering the large expenditure involved, and the enormous labour required
to do justice to such an undertaking, that in first instance a small descriptive volume
should be constructed for the genera of the Australian Evasculares only; that would
enable amateurs in cryptogamic Botany to work under some particular literary guidance,
and meanwhile we would learn a great deal more of the specific forms pertaining to
Australia, of their geographic and regional distribution, and of the limitability
of their characteristics, which latter in almost endless instances are still obscure.
