L1A Gnidium, which from circumstantial, rather than internal 
evidence, was probably intended for the same species, is 
still worse, especially in its leaves. The figure in the 
Botanical Register is tolerable ; but Loppiees, in the Bota- 
nical Cabinet is the best, being much more characteristic 
than Lazitiarpiere’s taken from a specimen with uncom- 
monly large leaves, which are not represented as convex, 
sensibly widening upwards—two characters, on which I 
chiefly depended in distinguishing this species,’ R. Brown, 
MSS. 
“Thus it appears, that our plant is evidently an old inha- 
bitant of the gardens about London, where, by reason of 
its disposition to vary in habit as well as in the shape of its 
leaves, it has borne several names, although it would seem 
it has never been known among cultivators by that origin- 
ally applied, and now again restored to it ;—a name, that 
has a reference to a tale of distress and privation, to which 
M. Ricug, one of the Naturalists who accompanied D’En- 
TRECASTEAUX in his voyage in search of La Pryrouse was 
subjected, in December, 1792, on the desert shores of 
Southern Australia, when the two French ships La Ré- 
cherche and L’Esperance anchored among the group of 
islands subsequently named, after the admiral’s ship, ‘ the 
Archipelago of the Recherche.’ The discoveries made by 
Noyts in 1627 on the South coast had terminated at this 
Archipelago ; and as it does not appear, that either the Dutch 
at that period, or Captain Vancouver when on that coast 
in 1791, more than a century and a half subsequently, had 
effected a landing, our earliest knowledge of the character 
of the productions of this part of Nuyts’ land, slight as it 
was, is due to the visit of M. Ricue, and especially to his 
subsequent misfortune. i a 
= We gather from M. Lasimarprere, (the Botanist of the 
expedition,) that on the morning of the 16th of December, 
1792, a boat having been sent from L’Esperance to the 
main shore, for the purposes of Astronomical observation, 
Citizen Ricne (attached as Naturalist to that vessel) accom- 
anied the party. 
me Quien? the beach on which he had landed, (some 
miles to the Westward of Cape le Grand, in long. 121° E.) 
and with the design of returning early in ‘the afternoon to 
the boat, ‘ that Naturalist,’ says Lasmiarpiere, ‘ became 
enraptured with the riches and novelty of all the produc- 
tions of that region, which no observer had hitherto visit- 
ed,’ and, quickly losing his way, he wandered to some - 
B distance 
