225 
Botany of Van Diemen’s Land. Extracts of a Letter from Dr. 
Harvey, dated Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land, March 31, 1855. 
About four weeks ago I received your very welcome letter of Decem- 
ber 8th, by the ‘James Baines’; and a few days ago your older letter 
of September 27 came to hand. I have already partially replied to the 
former through Dr. Hooker, and I have long promised myself to write 
you a fuller letter, which has been deferred from day to day; and now 
the mail is about being made up, I commence in rather a hurry. First, 
you ask for Van Diemen’s Land alpine seeds, and I enclose a few, some 
few of which may I hope be worth having, though I send in fear and 
trembling of your pronouncing them all common and worthless. They 
are all fresh, and of my own gathering, I don’t know whether you 
have Decaspora thymifolia in the garden, but it is well worth having, 
to bed out in an “American” bed, and is one of the most beautiful of 
the alpine little shrubs I have seen; covered in the season with pendent 
» clusters of crimson flowers and violet-coloured boomy berries, ripe while 
the flowers are in perfection; every twig which has not a cluster of 
flowers bears a bunch of berries. I gathered a great many more seeds 
on an excursion with Mr. W. Archer among the Western Mountains, 
but these I sent to our Irish gardens, as Mr. Archer was collecting for 
you, and will, I hope, take you a nice series when he goes to Europe 
next month. I have again written to him, to beg him to make sure of 
the Zelopia, which was not ripe when I was in the country. 
I arrived in Van Diemen's Land about the middle of January,—rathe 
the fag-end of the«season, as far as flowering plants were concerned,— 
and I remained four weeks at Georgetown, near the mouth of the Tamar, 
busily engaged with the Alge. The neighbourhood of Georgetown 
appears, by all accounts, to be the best Algz-ground in the island, 1t 
is here that Gunn has chiefly collected, and almost all the collections 
sent home are from this neighbourhood. Yet a person landing from 
the steamer at the town would pronounce it a most barren ground. - i 
. The localities äre varied in position, and situated from three to eight — 
miles from the town, to be reached chiefly in boats, as the best are at 
the opposite side of the river. Fortunately for me, the clergyman (Rev. 
J. Fereday) has a boat, and a taste for collecting, and most kindly gave 
me every facility of exploring; generally going with me everywhere. 
. The ground strongly reminds me of Bantry Bay; not so the as- 
G 
VOL. VII. 
