Audas, James Wales Clarendon (1872 - 1959)

James W. C. Audas was a member of the staff of the National Herbarium of Victoria. He started his botanical training under Luehmann in 1897 and retired in 1937. Over a twenty-five-year period his collecting trips for the Herbarium took him to all parts of the state except the alps and the mallee district.

One of his earliest excursions was to conduct a floristic survey of Wilsons Promontory in 1908, in company with a colleague from the Botanic Gardens, P. R. H. St John (1872-1944). After a third visit in 1910 they reported 600 species as indigenous to Wilsons Promontory National Park (Audas 1909, 1911). Audas's visits to the Grampians made a particular impression on him. He recorded its plant life and brought together his investigations in the Popular book One of Nature's Wonderlands ... (1925). During his career Audas was a prolific writer; The Australian Bushland (1950) included many of his writings and recounted tales of his botanical wanderings of half a century.
 

Extracted from: Flora of Victoria, Vol. 1, Chap 5, 'Botanical Exploration of Victoria', by J.H.Willis & Helen M. Cohn (1993). [consult for source references]