BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 23 



my progress. I expect to sail tomorrow morning, on board the * Jobn 

 Wesley/ missionary brig, on a cruise to some of the Pacific islands. 

 We shall first of all call at Auckland, New Zealand, where we remain a 

 week or ten days ; then proceed to Tongataboo, and visit each of the 

 Friendly Islands in turn ; then we proceed to the Peejee group, and 

 shall visit several of those islands, as there are thirteen mission stations 

 in that cluster ; we then (probably) visit the Navigators, and perhaps 

 the outlying island of Rotnma, and so return to Tongataboo, from 

 which we return to Sydney, the whole route occupying about four, or 

 perhaps, five months from this time; you may therefore address your 

 next letter to Sydney, care of Mr. Moore, Botanic Gardens. On my 

 arrival from the Islands I shall write to you, touching my success or 

 failure, and to tell you of my future plans, which will depend on cir- 

 cumstances. 



"I arrived in Sydney on the first of May, and have only visited 

 Newcastle as yet, besides short trips in the vicinity of Port Jackson. 

 The coast is not prolific, I believe. I wrote you of my Newcastle trip 

 a few days ago. Since my return, while dredging in the Paramatta 

 River, I found a single specimen of a new species olClaudea! quite 

 distinct from C elegans, from which it differs in the form of the leaf, 

 and specially in the pattern of the network; the ribs and nerves di- 

 verge in a radiant manner, instead of being parallel and at right an- 

 gles, and the smaller bars of the network cross in a decussate manner. 

 I went the following day and dredged for six hours over the same 

 ground, but found no more; I shall have another trial on my return : 

 it would be too provoking to leave Sydney finally without securing 

 more specimens of this singular plant. The pattern of the net is more 

 like that of Fanvoorstia than of the old Claudea^ but it has all the 

 essential characters of the latter genus." — W^H.II. 



Vegetable Fibres. — Botanical Garden^ Peradenia^ Ceylon. 



" The Committee bear willing testimony to the desire evinced by the 

 present Superintendent of the Botanicid Garden, Mr. Thwaites, to ren- 

 der his researches practically useful to the Colony, particularly in con- 

 nection with the inquiries which have recently been made for fibrous 

 substances. The specimens however that have been produced, though 



