Flora Australiensis
A Description of the Plants of the Australian Territory

A seven-volume compendium, published from 1863 to 1878, of Australian flora, compiled by one of Britain's most influential botanists.

George Bentham (Author), Ferdinand von Mueller (Author)

9781108037402, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 December 2011

718 pages
21.6 x 14 x 4 cm, 0.9 kg

George Bentham (1800–84) was one of Britain's most influential botanists, whose own collection of plant specimens numbered more than 100,000. Although he donated his herbarium to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1854, he continued to make significant contributions to the field, including this exhaustive, seven-volume work detailing the plant life of Australia, which was published from 1863 to 1878. It was part of a series of works commissioned by the British government to document the flora in its colonies. Using the extensive numbers of specimens at Kew - and with the help of Ferdinand Mueller (1825–96), a German botanist in Australia - Bentham was able to compile descriptions of more than 8,000 species of Australian plants, making these volumes the first completed compendium of the flora of any large continental area. Volume 3, published in 1866, describes 14 orders of dicotyledon flora in the subclasses polypetalae and monopetalae.

Conspectus of the orders
Order XLVIII. Myrtaceae
Order XLIX. Melastomaceae
Order L. Lythrarieae
Order LI. Onagrarieae
Order LII. Samydaceae
Order LIII. Passifloreae
Order LIV. Cucurbitaceae
Order LV. Ficoideae
Order LVI. Umbelliferae
Order LVII. Araliaceae
Order LVIII. Cornaceae
Order LIX. Loranthaceae
Order LX. Caprifoliaceae
Order LXI. Rubiaceae
Order LXII. Compositae
Index.

Subject Areas: Botany & plant sciences [PST]