180 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
and tempestuous day, I found myself storm-staid at Mr. 
Scott’s, but it was impossible that I could have been in 
better quarters. 
The next morning I started for the Vasse, but found the 
road very indistinctly tracked. In fifteen miles I reached the 
Capel River, the property of Sir James Stirling, and having 
heard a description of a highly beautiful Convolvulus, growing 
near the fording place, and forming lovely festoons from tree 
to tree, I looked out for it, but could find nothing of the kind. 
Soon after crossing the Capel, I observed the elegant Beau- 
fortia decussata and Johnsonia lupulina, which I had never 
seen before, except near King George's Sound. 
Five miles farther on, I crossed some hills of secondary 
limestone, covered with immense trees of Eucalyptus (I think 
E. occidentalis, Hugel) ; but whatever be the species, this 
was by far the largest tree in Western Australia; the foot- 
stalks of this gigantic species are united, several together, 
flat, nearly a quarter of an inch broad. It surpasses all the 
other inhabitants of the forest, both in height and breadth, 
and thickness. Some miles before reaching this forest, I 
met with a remarkable plant, whose foliage bore some simili- 
tude to the European Yew, but rather longer, more pointed 
and glaucous; it is a low growing diccious shrub, 
forming patches, several yards in extent. The male flowers 
resemble a compound of many blossoms of the Yew, but I 
must state that I only observed them remaining on the plant 
in a withered and dry state ; the female flowers I did not see 
but they had been succeeded by ripe fruits, about the size d 
a middling plum, and of a beautiful purple colour, covered 
with rich. glaucous bloom. It is impossible to present 3 - 2 
more tempting appearance to the eye than does this fruit, 
and when I showed it, and specimens of the shrub which 
bore it, to Mrs. Molloy, she assured me that it was equally oH 
good to the palate, and when she had resided at Auguste» 
that a soldier had brought it to her from somewhere on the 7? D 
Blackwood River. To me, this small tree appears more 
closely allied to the Yew, than anything else with which J am ; 
