138 ON THE HUON PINE, &c. 
else remarkably local, and consequently confined within narrow 
areas; and further, to the want of an intelligent class of 
natives, such as inhabit New Zealand, who may direct the 
man of science, or the settler, to what tradition and expe- 
rience have taught the aboriginal inhabitant to value in his 
savage state. Many of the species, also, are limited to 
the more remote and almost inaccessible parts of the island ; 
only bearing flowers after attaining a considerable size, and 
they are not easily procured in a state fit for examination. 
Such is eminently the case with the Huon Pine: it is con- 
fined to the western and southern parts of the colony, grow- 
ing in dense forests, or amongst inountains covered with a - 
vegetation the most difficult to penetrate. It has been seen — 
by few Europeans, save the wood-cutter or the convict; 
itself being the only inducement for a Botanist to visit that 
tempestuous and rainy quarter of Tasmania. Mr. Gunn, 
to whom the botany of this part of the globe is so greatly 
indebted, and to whose zeal and perseverance we owe the 
discovery of nearly one half of its Conifere, never found | 
the Huon Pine in its native state; and of the three men of. 
science who have done so, Sir J. Franklin, Mr. Backhouse, 
and Mr. A. Cunningham, the latter alone has been able to 
procure fructification, and that but imperfect. : 
Next to the Huon Pine, the species called the Celery-topped z 
or Adventure-Bay Pine, is the best known to the colonists, - 
as well as the most widely diffused ; and until these very few — 
years, none other was described by Botanists. It is the Po- 
docarpus aspleniifolia of its discoverer, Labillardière, the dis- 
tinguished naturalist and historiographer of D'Entrecas- 
teaux's Voyage. : 
The Oyster-Bay Pine, a species of the widely distributed - 
Australian genus, Callitris, is the only other coniferous ; 
plant commonly known amongst the colonists of Tasmania. 
It is true that a large district in the interior is called the 
Pine-marshes ; and a river given off from it bears the same 
name; but, unless a species of Arthrotaxis which I procured 
in its bed, at a considerable distance from its source, 4 
