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THE CYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
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iderable quantity. Their potency is greatest after flowering, and it is just at that time that other herbage has been fed off. Stock do not eat the poison foliage from choice, but from scarcity of other feed. Overcrowding the animals at any one spot is therefore the most fruitful cause of stock losses from poison plants. Small paddocks with only one watering-place, or the neighbourhood of frequent camps, are always danger-points in a poison bush country. As a general rule all the native herbage is good feed for stock, but in most localities is thinly distributed. Hence the danger of overstocking, even for a short period.

It is matter for great regret that successive Governments have so long neglected to develop the scientific knowledge of the flora of the State. All the other States have compiled and published floras, but that for Western Australia has yet to be written. What is known now is mainly the result of private enterprise encouraged and directed by other State Administrations. It is now nearly a quarter of a century since any full discussion and review of Australian botanical results has been attempted.

Summarizing all the data at present available the conclusions to which they point are:—

  • 1. Descendants of the primitive Australian flora still survive in the south-west division of Western Australia.
  • 2. The Eremian region has a flora which is also distinctively Australian, but it originated out of the elements of the old flora in admixture with an ancient immigrant flora of a type now also mainly extinct
  • 3. A later immigrant flora from the Oriental regions and Malay Islands has obtained a strong footing along the tropical coasts of Australia. This flora is strongly marked right down to Tasmania on the east side of Australia, but on the west side its farthest stragglers do not come as far south as Shark Bay.
  • 4. The isolation of the south-west flora from the flora in the cast dates far back and is still maintained. Practically the connection between the south-west and eastern Australia is limited to the Eremian plants; less than a dozen truly south-west plants have as yet been detected inside the typical Eremian area.
  • 5. The artificial division of the Western Australian flora into two sections only—the one extra-tropical and the other inter-tropical—is misleading, because the Eremian flora is mixed with both divisions. Mere tropical and extra-tropical lists are therefore useless for comparison.
  • 6. The Eremian flora is very partially distributed and localized; the greater number of its species appears only during exceptional seasons or in special positions About 942 species are believed to occur west of the east boundary of the State. Of these some 208 species spread north to the tropical coast of the Northern Territory, 830 species spread east into South Australia, 594 continue on into Victoria, and 200 still farther east into Tasmania. These Victorian and Tasmanian species include the 236 species which intrude into the south-west division of Western Australia, and they constitute the only plant-link directly connecting the two southern corners of the continent at this time.
  • 7. There are 1,221 species at present assigned to the north-coast flora or Kimberley division of Western Australia. A consideration of the data at present available for the whole State seems to justify the following estimate of the species more or less restricted to each division and constituting the present flora of the State:—
    • South-west division, 2,239 species, of which 2,013 are endemic; Eremian or central division, 706 species, of which 614 are endemic; north or Kimberley division, 1,221 species, of which 780 are endemic. Totals, 4,166 species, of which 3,407 are endemic.


THE ABORIGINES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

There are very few matters pertaining to Western Australia of which it is more difficult to give a comprehensive account than the aborigines. Those of the Eastern States have been more or less completely studied and described by A. W. Howitt (the pioneer of Australian aboriginal anthropology), the Rev. John Mathew, Dr. Roth, Professor Spencer, F. J. Gillen, and others. But except for vocabularies collected by George Fletcher Moore and Sir George Grey little work in the direction of obtaining a full knowledge of the Western Australian aborigines has been so far undertaken. From time to time explorers passing through various parts of the State have collected information, none the less valuable because often incidental and disjointed, and there have also been desultory attempts to gain some knowledge of native life and customs in particular districts. So far, however, no results of a comprehensive character have been published. At present something in the way of remedying our ignorance is being attempted by two observers working in different fields. Mr. Alfred Brown, in charge of an ethnological expedition from Cambridge University, is conducting researches into the anthropology of the natives of the north-west, while Mrs. Daisy M. Bates is endeavouring to secure at first hand material for a survey of the manners and customs, habits and languages of the aborigines generally throughout the State. It will probably be several years before these researches are completed. Meantime all that can be done is to present in a concise form such information as may be available. We do not, therefore, lay claim to any degree of originality in this article, but desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to all those who have previously written

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