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pede the use of my hands, I reached our sleeping place at three 
o'clock, much fatigued with my load, but highly gratified ; having 
this day found at least two plants, which will continue to be 
admired while a taste for the beauties of nature remains to the 
human race.”’ 
In another part of this letter he writes : ““ West Mount Barren 
was distant about ten miles. Just before I reached this sleeping 
place, and afterwards in greater abundance between it and Mount 
Barren, I found a most extraordinary plant, a species of Hakea, 
growing twelve or fourteen feet high: the true leaves of the 
plant are seven or eight inches long, jagged and sinuated as in 
Hakea undulata, but by far the most conspicuous part of the 
foliage of this superb plant are its bracts, which make their ap- 
pearance with the flower-buds. When the plant is three or 
four years old, they are borne in regular whorls, each circle or 
whorl being from seven to nine inches in height, formed of five 
rows, which have each five bracts; the lowest bracts of the whorl 
are the broadest, and vary from four to five inches, the whole 
breadth across, in full-grown, middle-sized specimens, being 
about ten inches ; and they regularly decrease in size to the upper- 
most bracts, which are only about four inches across from outside 
to outside ; each whorl is a year’s growth of the plant after it 
bears the first flowers. The variegation of these bracts is so ex- 
traordinary, that I almost fear to attempt a description. ‘The 
first year they are yellowish-white in all the centre of the bracts, 
and the same colour appears in the veins and in the teeth, which 
grow on the margin; the second year, what was white the 
first year has changed to a rich golden-yellow; the third year, 
what was yellow becomes a rich orange; and the fourth year, 
the colour of the centre of the same bracts, their veins and 
marginal.teeth, are turned to a blood-red. The green, which has 
a remarkably light and luminous appearance the first year, varies 
annually to deeper and darker shades ; and the fourth year, when 
the centre of the bracts has acquired a blood-red colour, the green 
of the same series is of the richest hue, while the whorls below 
change to darker and duller shades, until they ultimately fade 
“into the dull and withered leaves of other climes. The flowers © 
I have not seen: the stem and buds of the upper series, which 
are the only ones unopened, are white and velvety; the other 
series contain seed-vessels, mostly with perfect seeds. To this, the 
most splendid vegetable production which I have ever beheld, in 
a wild or cultivated state, I have given the name of our gracious 
Queen, Hakea Victoria. It will soon be cultivated in every garden 
of note in Europe, and in many other countries. I thought it 
