16 
Extract from a letter from Ronald Gunn, Esq. to Dr. Lindley. 
** Hobarton, Van Diemen’s Land, .23d Sept. 1839. 
* My dear Sir, —Your letter of the 23rd F ebruary last, 
with your ‘Observations on the effect of Frost on Plants,’ 
only reached me yesterday, and I now hasten to acknowledge 
their receipt. Your observations on Frost are highly inte- 
resting, and I cannot do better than at once communicate to 
you such remarks as a perusal of it has called forth, as far as 
relates to the Plants of Australia. I find that all the Plants 
of Van Diemen’s Land, with one or two exceptions, appear to 
have resisted the cold, although the majority of Australian 
plants did not; but that is hardly to be wondered at when they 
are principally found near the sea in lat. 340, 
* Acacia. Of this genus A. affinis and diffusa will, I 
think, always be found hardy, also probably melanoxylon, al- 
though the latter usually grows in shaded umbrageous ravines, 
and therefore in its natural state is protected from all frosts 
until very old. The fate of A. verticillata astonishes me, as 
I consider it a decidedly hardy species. A. sophora grows in 
the sands by the sea shore and there only, and I find will not 
stand well in gardens here, principally from the impossibility 
of providing it with a suitable soil. I found the frosts at 
Launceston, affected the young branches in my garden. I am 
not aware of any other of the species being indigenous to 
Van Diemen’s Land. 
** Aster argophyllus is only found in very damp shaded 
warm ravines, where it is, in its oldest state, sheltered by the 
large Eucalypti. It is our tenderest shrubby aster, and the 
young shoots were injured by the frost every winter, in the 
late Mr. Robert Lawrence’s garden at Launceston, where 
exposed. You will find A. viscarius, and indeed almost every 
species hardy, except argophyllus and another, which is only 
found on sandhills near the sea. 
“ Banksia. No species in your list belong to Van Die- 
men’s Land. 
“ Billardiera longifolia is not our’s either, but I think 
some of our species would be found hardy. B. longiflora, it is 
true, usually grows in thickets, twining round shrubs, so that 
| lt 1$ never exposed to frost in its natural state. 
, “ Correa alba only exists here on the sandhills and rocks 
within a few yards of the sea, and is not found inland any- 
