| Mr. Brown, on the Proteaceae of Jussieu. | 21 |
much greater affinity with those of New Holland than of Africa.
Of the botany of South Africa, scarce any thing is known, except that of the Cape of Good Hope, where this family occurs in the greatest abundance and variety; but even from the single fact of a genuine species of Protea having been found in Abyssinia by Bruce, it may be presumed, that in some degree they are also spread over this continent.
With the shores, at least, of New Holland, under which I include Van Diemen's Island, we are now somewhat better acquainted, and in every known part of these, Proteaceæ have been met with.
But it appears that, both in Africa and New Holland, the great mass of the order exists about the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope; in which parallel it forms a striking feature in the vegetation of both continents.
What I am about to advance repecting the probable distribution of this family in New Holland, must be very cautiously received; as it is in fact chiefly deduced from the remarks I have myself made in captain Flinders's Voyage, and subsequently during my short stay in the settlements of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Island, aided by what was long ago ascertained by Sir Joseph Banks, and by a very transitory inspection of an herbarium collected on the west coast, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Shark's Bay, by the botanists attached to the expedition of captain Baudin.
From knowledge so acquired I am inclined to hazard the following observations.
The mass of the order, though extending through the whole of the parallel already mentioned, is by no means equal in every part of it; but on the south-west coast from a more decided
| feature |
