210 THE BUNYA-BUNYA. 



Extract from a recent Letter of 



of 



dated Ipswich, Moreton Bay, 35th September, 1856. 



" I shall be very happy to be of assistance to the Royal Gardens of 

 Kew if I possibly can, but I am really no botanist. 



" This last season was the Bunya-Btinya season, but I am sorry to 

 say I was unable to obtain a single cone. 



" A gentleman sent me twelve seeds out of the cone, and when I was 

 from home the overseer put them into the ground, where they remained 

 for some considerable time before I knew they were there. I also 

 obtained another seed, the -contents of which I ate partly raw and 

 partly roasted. When raw it is decidedly unpalatable, but when 

 roasted is very good, being between a chestnut and a potato. The 

 husk of the seed I filled with cotton and gummed together, and shall 

 be happy to send it to be placed with the cone. 



" Now as to Water-lilies. I had one root sent to me a distance of 

 nearly 290 miles, with a sample of the flower, just before the beginning 

 of winter, and was told it was different to anything of the kind growing 

 in any other part of the district. It is a magnificent pale-blue Lily, 

 not very much unlike what we call the Mica Lily, but larger. I put 

 it into a water-hole in Bundanba Creek on this estate, but as yet have 

 seen nothing of it, and very much fear that it has been destroyed be- 

 came trampling the hole ; if so, and Sir William Hooker requires Lilies, 

 I will endeavour to get another of the same species. It was unknown 

 at the Botanical Gardens at Sydney. We have a great many different 

 kinds here ; the ' Mica » is generally considered the beauty, par excel- 

 lence t it grows in all parts of the district. 



" There is a Water-lily growing in a large water-hole or lagoon (in 

 the bush, not on the road) between the stations of Wambo and Terry- 

 boo on the lower Condamine, and I have never seen or heard of 

 another like it. The leaves are green on the top and red underneath ; 

 if I remember rightly, the stalks are reddish too ; the leaves are so 

 large that the Blacks hide under them ; the flowers are very large, as 

 large or larger than a very large saucer, and red in colour. The 

 flowers I have not seen myself, but was informed of the size and colour 

 by a person who had seen them several times.* There was an attack 



t^^SS^i^S^ *"*"""' ° r ^ *" of India, Known to 



