Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/550

 Bo'r a w�.] NATURAL HIS?ORY. 525 altogether in an arid soil, should have been discovered throughout any part of its extensive .shore; whilst, on the other hand, at a peculiar structure of a small and limited portion of that coast, in the vicinity of York Sound, a suf- ticiency of shade was observed to be actually produced by the unusually broken character of the country, to fayour the nourishment and growth of certain plants alone to be seen �beneath the shade of dense forests. These species were Myristica insipida, discovered by Mr. Brown, on one of the Prince of Wales's group of islands on the North Coast; Cryptocarya triplinervis, Brown; bearing ripe fruit, Abroma fastuosa; and an undescribed Eugenia. ARhough the several genera of plants lately observed oa the north-western shores are also frequent in other equi- noctial parts of the continent, there is, among the many , species which are absolutely proper to that coast, a Cap-, paris of such extraordinary habit, as to form a feature in the landscape of a limited extent of its shores, in the enormous bulk of its stem and general ramillcafion, bearing a striking analogy to the Adansonia of the west coast of Africa. The results of such observations on the vegetation as could only be made in a general way, at parts approaching each extreme of the North-west Coast, shew their little affinity to each other; for the northern extremity partakes more fully of that feature of the line of coast contiguous to it, which (as already remarked) extends along the north- western shores, declines materially at, and in the vicinity of their southern limits, where the characteristic vegetation of the south, and perlisps the west, coasts has more parti- cularly been found. Besides Eucalyptus and Acacia, whicix are abundant on every shore, and generally diffused through- out those parts of the interior that have been penetrated

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