ON THE MYRTACE^E OF AUSTRALIA. By Rev W. Woolls, Ph.D., F.L.S. The Myrtle family, occurring as it does both within and without the tropics, may be regarded as one of the most useful and extensive families of the Vegetable Kingdom. It is also easily recognised, for the leaves are for the most part opposite, exstipulate, and filled with dots of volatile oil, whilst the venation is marked by a marginal or intramarginal vein. The species are naturally divided into capsular and berried, the former being wholly or chiefly Australian, and the latter widely spread both in the New and Old World. Only one species, Myrtus communis, now grows wild in Europe (and that is supposed to have been introduced from Persia), though there is reason to believe, that, during the eocene period when the climate of that division of the globe was much warmer than it now is, Myrtaceous trees flourished there with other plants of an Australian aspect. These trees, which some regard as the last vestiges of the organic creation peculiar to the primitive world, now appear in great abundance in Australia, the Myrtacece alone, according to Baron F. von Mueller, reckoning between 600 and 700 species and constituting by far the greater portion of the native forests. In the distribution of these trees and shrubs, there is a peculiarity which is somewhat perplexing, for whilst, in some portions of the continent, they occur in undue proportion to the rest of the vegetation, they are limited in others to half the number of genera and a sixth of the species, as will appear from the following estimate of Baron Mueller. Genera. Species. Western Australia 25 .. 379 IS ew South Wales 18 ... 145 Queensland 23 ... 132 Victoria 13 ... 78 South Australia 11 ... 70 North Australia 17 ... 68
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