Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/550

536 enjoyed no common advantages, through the liberality of Sir Joseph Banks, in whose Herbarium I had not only access to nearly the whole of the species of plants previously brought from Terra Australis, but received specimens of all those of which there were duplicates. Of these plants, exceeding 1000 species, the far greater part were collected by Sir Joseph Banks himself, in the voyage in which New South Wales was discovered. The rest were found at Adventure Bay in Van Diemen's Land, by Mr. David Nelson, in the third voyage of captain Cook; at King Georges's Sound on the south-west coast of New Holland, by Mr. Menzies, in captain Vancouver's voyage; and in the colony of New South Wales by several botanists, especially the late colonel Paterson and Mr. David Burton. Since my return from New Holland I have had opportunities of examining, in the same Herbarium, many new species, found in New South Wales by Mr. George Caley, an acute and indefatigable botanist, who resided nearly ten years in that colony: and have received from the late colonel Paterson several species discovered by himself within the limits of the colony of Port Dalrymple; which was established under his command.

I have also examined, in the Sherardian Herbarium at Oxford, the greater part of the plants brought from Shark's Bay by the celebrated navigator Dampier, and have seen a few additional species from that and other parts of the West Coast of New Holland, collected in the voyage of captain Baudin.

The additional species obtained from all these collections are upwards of 800; my materials, therefore, for the commencement of a Flora of Terra Australis amount to about 4200 species; a small number certainly for a country nearly equal in size to the whole of Europe, but not inconsiderable for the detached portions of its shores hitherto examined.

In Persoon's Synopsis, the latest general work on phænogamous plants, their number is nearly 21000. The cryptogamous plants already published, by various authors, exceed 6000; and if to these be added the phænogamous plants that have appeared in different works since the publication of Persoon's Synopsis, and the unpublished species of both classes already existing in the collections of Europe, the number of plants at present known may be estimated at 33000, even exclusive of those peculiar to Terra Australis.

The observations in the present essay being chiefly on extensive