''Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory'', more commonly referred to as ''Flora Australiensis'', and also known by its standard abbreviation ''Fl. Austral.'', is a seven-volume

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

published between 1863 and 1878 by

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

, with the assistance of

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

. It was one of the famous

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

series of colonial floras, and the first flora of any large continental area that had ever been finished. In total the flora included descriptions of 8125 species.Orchard, A. E. 1999. Introduction. In A. E. Orchard, ed. ''Flora of Australia - Volume 1'', 2nd edition pp 1-9. Australian Biological Resources Study Bentham prepared the flora from Kew; with Mueller, the first plant taxonomist residing permanently in Australia, loaning the entire collection of the

National Herbarium of Victoria The National Herbarium of Victoria (Index Herbariorum code: MEL) is one of Australia's earliest herbaria and the oldest scientific institution in Victoria. Its 1.5 million specimens of preserved plants, fungi and algae—collectively known a ...

to Bentham over the course of several years. Mueller had been dissuaded from preparing a flora from Australia while in Australia by Bentham and

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of ...

since historic collections of Australian species were all held in European herbaria which Mueller could not access from Australia. Mueller did eventually produce his own flora of Australia, the ''

Systematic Census of Australian Plants The ''Systematic census of Australian plants, with chronologic, literary and geographic annotations'', more commonly known as the ''Systematic Census of Australian Plants'', also known by its standard botanic abbreviation ''Syst. Census Austral. ...

'' published in 1882 extended the work of Bentham with the addition of new species and taxonomic revisions. ''Flora Australiensis'' was the standard reference work on the Australian flora for more than a century. As late as 1988, James Willis wrote that "''Flora Australiensis'' still remains the only definitive work on the vascular vegetation of the whole continent." According to Nancy Burbidge, "it represents a prodigious intellectual effort never equalled." ''Flora Australiensis'' is credited with forming the basis of subsequently published regional floras; 19th century floras were published for all states except Western Australia, they were for the most part extracts of this work.

References

Further reading