A reprint of a classical work in the Cambridge Library Collection
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 7, published in 1878, concludes with descriptions of flora in the classes of monocotyledon and cryptogamae.
Concluding preface
Conspectus of the orders
Order CXXVI. Roxburghiaceae
Order CXXVII. Liliaceae
Order CXXVIII. Pontederaceae
Order CXXIX. Philydraceae
Order CXXX. Xyrideae
Order CXXXI. Commelynaceae
Order CXXXII. Juncaceae
Order CXXXIII. Palmae
Order CXXXIV. Pandaneae
Order CXXXV. Aroideae
Order CXXXVI. Typhaceae
Order CXXXVII. Lemnaceae
Order CXXXVIII. Naiadeae
Order CXXXIX. Alismaceae
Order CXL. Eriocauleae
Order CXLI. Centrolepideae
Order CXLII. Restiaceae
Order CXLIII. Cyperaceae
Order CXLIV. Gramineae. Cryptogamae
Order CXLV. Lycopodiaceae
Order CXLVI. Marsileaceae
Order CXLVII. Filices
Index