Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/582

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568
APPENDIX.
[Botany of Terra Australis.

directions: but while no genus has been met with within the tropic which does not also exist in the principal parallel, unless that section of Grevillea having a woody capsule[1] be considered as such, several genera occur at the South end of Van Diemen's Island which appear to be peculiar to it.

No Australian species of the order has been observed in any other part of the world, and even all its genera are confined to it, with the exception of Lomatia, of which several species have been found in South America; and of Stenocarpus, the original species of which is a native of New Caledonia.

The genera of Terra Australia that approach most nearly to the South African portion of the Proteaceæ exist in the principal parallel, and chiefly at its western extremity: those allied to the American part of the order are found either at the eastern extremity of the same parallel, or in Van Diemen's Island.

There is no species of Proteaceæ common to the east and west coasts of New Holland, and certain genera abound at one extremity of the principal parallel which at the opposite extremity are either comparatively rare or entirely wanting.

I have formerly remarked that in this order no instance of deviation from the quaternary division of the perianthium has been observed; a fact which is the more remarkable as this is itself a deviation from the prevailing quinary number in the floral envelopes of Dicotyledonous plants.

There is a peculiarity in the structure of the stamina of certain genera of Proteaceæ namely, Simsia, Conospermum, and Synaphea, in all of which these organs are connected in such a manner that the cohering lobes of two different antheræ form only one cell.

Another anomaly equally remarkable, exists in Synaphea, the divisions of whose barren filament so intimately cohere with the stigma as to be absolutely lost in its substance, while the style and undivided part of the filament remain perfectly distinct.

SANTALACEÆ. I have formerly[2] proposed, and attempted to
  1. Cycleptera, Lin. soc. transact. 10. p. 176. prodr. fl. nov. holl. 380.
  2. Prodr. fl. nov. holl. 350.