Abstract
THE relationships of the Australian flora were the subject of several communications at the recent Pan-Pacific Congress. Dr. J. McLuckie said there was a strong Antarctic element in the Australian flora, the main centre of which to-day was Tasmania; these Antarctic elements ranged northwards throughout Victoria and New South Wales, chiefly along the western slopes of the main range, and their northerly limit was determined by the climate. Mr. L. Rodway (Tasmania) stated that there were more endemic species in the wet west of Tasmania than in the drier east; thus the western pines were vestiges of a former flora which elsewhere had been overwhelmed by migrations from Australia. All the Proteas had dry country characters although they grew in wet areas; one of the two species of beech was very like a Northern Hemisphere tree. Dr. Rogers (South Australia) pleaded for the recording of the distribution of orchids as this might throw light on former land connexions. Dr. E. D. Merrill (Manila) stated that representatives of several families of plants, for the most part confined to Australia, occurred in the Philippines, but were scarce in other parts of Malaysia. His conclusion was that Australian plants, as well as those of New Caledonia and New Guinea, reached the Philippines through remote geological connexions, but were inhibited by constant arms of the sea from travelling the shorter distance to Borneo and Java. According to Mr. R. H. Cambage (Sydney), the original acacias belonged to the tropics, and there seemed no doubt that the wattles had entered Australia from the north; some of them suited themselves to dry conditions by dispensing with small leaflets, and by developing their leaf stalks into flat blades, or phyllodes, which served as leaves; in all cases the first leaf of a seedling was pinnate. One species in the Blue Mountains could revert to leaves after it had developed phyllodes.
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HADDON, A. The Pan-Pacific Science Congress, Australia, 1923. Nature 113, 28–29 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113028a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113028a0