The first comprehensive flora of any large continental area. It included descriptions of 8125 species. "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 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 since historic collections of Australian species were all held in European herbaria which Mueller could not access from Australia.^[2] Mueller did eventually produce his own flora of Australia, the Systematic Census of Australian Plants 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."^[3] According to Nancy Burbidge, "it represents a prodigious intellectual effort never equalled."^{[4]" (Wikipedia article on Flora Austaliensis, accessed 02-2017).}

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.