MEDICINAL PLANTS FROM N.W. QUEENSLAND. 69 
omnino propri» stirpis inter Verrucarias, sporis simplicibus, 
paraphysibus facieque pertusarioidea. Thallus gonidiosus. 
On Pine trees. Above Nagasaki. 
27. VERRUCARIA NITIDA (Schrad.). On bark of trees. Yokohama. 
28. TRYPETHELIUM SpRENGELII (Ach.). On bark of trees. 
Nagasaki. 
Notes on certain Plants of North-western Queensland dem 
valuable Medicinal Properties. By Wiit1am E. Arit, 
F.L.S., F.R.G-S. 
[Read November 2, 1882.— Abstract. ] 
AN intimate acquaintance with the habits and customs of our 
aborigines led me some years ago to attach considerable import- 
ance to the study of the plants in use among them for mediciual 
purposes. My subordinates were of great assistance to me in 
procuring plants, roots, and flowers which they averred were spe- 
cifics in several forms of disease; but I found that in very many 
cases faith alone was the curative agent, as the remedy, when 
exhibited to a European, failed to exert any beneficial change 
whatever. 
I found it extremely difficult to sift the evidence adduced in 
support of these statements, there being generally so much con- 
comitant superstition mixed up with the truth. Some plants, 
for instance, only retained their healing properties during the 
first week of the new moon. Others, again, were to be used at 
the full or last quarter. More could only be brought into requi- 
sition when growing in certain localities, as under rocks, on the 
summit of mountains, near a waterfall, or in a swamp. 
About this time I was astonished to find a native woman drying 
a quantity of Aristolochia which grew abundantly under the 
granite rocks near Dunrobin. This, she informed me, was useful 
in midwifery. 
The women of Yule Island use an indigenous plant—a species 
of Croton, I believe—for the purpose of procuring abortion ; but 
I have not met with the custom in Queensland in this shape. 
In the wet season of 1877-78 the patrol on the Ennasleigh 
river was constantly wet through, and spent a most miserable 
month swimming creeks and rivers, lying on wet ground, and 
