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flowering species to nearly 4,000, a truly splendid achievement. This collection was, by a strange coincidence, representative of the two great gulf systems of Australia—that from the south coast being from the east end of the Great Bight to St. Vincent Gulf and Kangaroo Island, and that from the north including all the flat shores round the Gulf of Carpentaria and the escarpment of desert tableland along the north coast of the Northern Territory. Flinders' voyages terminated in 1803, but it was not till 1814 that his narrative was published. Baudin, the French explorer whom Flinders met in Encounter Bay, had meanwhile pirated all Flinders' discoveries, incorporating them with his own work down the north-west and west coast of Australia. Leschenault de la Tour, the botanist of his expedition, had, however, but few opportunities to add to collections until the expedition put into the Geographe Bay and discovered Leschenault Inlet, where now the town of Bunbury stands.

The botany of the west, south-east, and north coasts had become fairly known as the results of the foregoing discovery voyages. When Flinders' narrative was published in 1814 the British Government decided to have the unknown north-west coast also surveyed and thus complete the outline of the map of Australia. Lieutenant King's voyages from 1817 to 1821 were made with this object, and as his landings promised to be frequent the famous botanist, Allan Cunningham, having been specially sent out from Kew Gardens to study Australia's flora, was attached to the expedition. One of King's other officers was Lieutenant Roe, afterwards Surveyor-General of Western Australia, and in this connection it is interesting to note that just as Lieutenant Roe's surveying work completed the Australian coastline, so the work of his successor as Surveyor-General, Mr. (now Right Honourable Sir John) Forrest, completed the line of exploration across the centre of Australia from east to west. Cunningham's collections during King's voyages brings to an end the first phase of our know- ledge of the Australian flora, the flora of a region isolated from the rest of the world, its own natural vegetation protected from intruders by
"The long wash of Australian seas."

Spider Orchid	Flannel Flower	Spider Orchid

The second phase of Australian botanical explorations—that of the region inland—did not begin until after King's last voyage. Allan Cunningham remained in Australia to pursue his studies at the cost of the Home Government, and in 1823 he led an exploring expedition northward along the western foot of the Blue Mountains, crossed the Liverpool Plains in a subsequent journey, and reached as far north as the latitude of Brisbane. Cunningham added 1,300 new species to the flora, and his death when accompanying Mitchell's expedition in 1835 was an irreparable loss. The work done by others also increased the list considerably. Captain Stirling, when founding the Swan River colony in 1829, had introduced a staff of gardeners with James Drummond in charge, and planted Government gardens. Drummond became a permanent settler in the colony and made extensive collections of the native plants, which collections he sent to Europe. His assistants—Gilbert, Morrison, and Mangles—also made extensive collections and disposed of them. Wilson, Baxter, and Collie gathered largely in the Cape Leeuwin corner and along the south coast, while Surveyor-General Roe always collected extensively during his journeys inland. Much of the material thus collected passed into Cunningham s hands, and in 1833 the Austrian traveller