P R E F A C E .
T h e ‘ Flora of Tasmania’ completes the series o f works on the Botany o f the “ Antarctic
Expedition,” with the publication o f which I was entrusted by Her Majesty’s Lord Commissioners
of the Admiralty in 1 843. Of these, the First Series, on the Botany of the
Antarctic Islands, was completed in two volumes, with two hundred plates, in 1 847 ; when
the work was interrupted by my being sent on a Botanical mission to India by Her Majesty’s
Commissioners o f Woods and Forests.
During my absence on that mission the rapid progress of geographical discovery in our
southern Colonial possessions, the increased exertions o f our Botanical correspondents there,
who were stimulated by the prospect of a speedy publication of their discoveries, and the
activity o f the officers o f several surveying expeditions, had combined to augment the amount
o f materials to be examined and described for the Second and Third Series which comprise
the Floras o f New Zealand and Tasmania, to an extent so many times greater than had ever
been contemplated, that I had no choice but to abandon the original plan of making complete
Floras, or to devote a great deal more time to them than I had ever proposed to expend.
My Publisher, Mr. Reeve, having offered to enlarge the Floras as much as I should find
necessary, free o f all cost to myself, I had no hesitation in adopting the latter alternative;
and whilst still engaged on the publication of the New Zealand Flora, I had the unexpected
gratification of receiving from the Governor and Parliament of Tasmania the announcement
that they had unanimously awarded me a grant of £ 3 5 0 , in consideration of my services in
the investigation of the Flora of the Southern Hemisphere, especially that of Tasmania. At
the same time I received the most encouraging assistance from my friend William Archer,
Esq., o f Cheslmnt, Tasmania, who forwarded to me a beautiful series of drawings of Tasmanian
Orchids, together with £ 1 0 0 to be expended on the F lo ra ; and he soon afterwards
arrived liimself in England, and rendered me still more valuable aid by his observations and
collections, which is duly acknowledged in the body of this work. I have thus been enabled
greatly to extend the letterpress and illustrations o f this Flora, by putting figures of many
more species on the p la te s; making the descriptions fuller, adding thirty plates, including
sixty species, chiefly of Orchidea (of many of which Mr. Archer had prepared the drawings),
and by appending 130 pages devoted to general considerations on the Botany of Australia