GENERAL REMARKS, &c.
The coasts of the great South Land commonly [533[1] called New Holland have been discovered partly by Dutch and partly by English navigators. Captain Flinders, considering it therefore unjust towards the English to retain a name for the whole country which implies its discovery to have been made by the Dutch alone, has thought proper to recur to its original name Terra Australis; under which he includes the small islands adjacent to various parts of its coasts, and the more considerable southern island called Van Diemen's Land.
In this extended sense I shall use Terra Australis in the following observations, but when treating of the principal Land separately, shall continue to employ its generally received name New Holland; that I may be more readily understood by botanists, for whom these observations are intended, and preserve consistency with the title of a work, part of which I have already published, on the plants of that country.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to collect such general, and at the same time, strictly botanical, observations on the vegetation of Terra Australis, as our very limited knowledge of this vast country appears already to afford. To these observations are added descriptions of a few remarkable plants, which have been selected for publication, from the extensive and invaluable collection of drawings made by Mr. Ferdinand Bauer in New Holland, chiefly during the voyage of the Investigator.
- ↑ These figures throughout the volume correspond with the paging in the original.
