LATK ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ESQ. 281 



• 



colonial government, the botanical portion of it was not so 

 much to our collector, on account of his traversing principally 

 luxuriant pastures, which afforded him but a few plants inter- 

 esting in a botanical point of view : on this subject Mr Cun- 

 ningham remarks — " Truly important as these researches of 

 country will prove to the many British farmers who are peri- 

 odically emigrating to our distant shores, the land through 

 which I have recently penetrated has been generally so uni- 

 form in appearance — forwhere any deviation to barren brush)' 

 tracts existed, they presented little or no novelty to the botani- 

 cal traveller — that only a small collection of dried plants have 

 been made, the indigenous vegetation being identically of the 

 same characters generally as that seen and collected last sum- 

 mer. I have, however, gathered a few papers of desirable seeds 

 not previously found." 



A new, and as it was anticipated, a more practicable route, 

 having been discovered over the Blue Mountains to the 

 northward of the existing road, Mr Cunningham determined 

 to investigate its locality, deeming it very likely to afford him 

 some botanical rarities. At the latter end of November, he 

 proceeded with two men and a couple of packhorses, to in- 

 vestigate this newly discovered pass, and from his journals I 

 shall make occasional extracts of his proceedings: — 



" November 26th. About 7 a.m., I commenced my journey 

 from Mr Bell's farm, having passed an irregular tract of ris- 

 ing forest-land by a well-beaten road to a watermill, distant 

 about four and a half miles north-westerly from Hawkesbury 

 river, the marked trees of the surveyor (who had been sent to 

 examine and report upon the line of route,) led us over a 

 ridge of wooded hills to a rocky guUy, which having crossed, 

 we immediately gained a main range, bounded on either side 

 by deep ravines. This range, which ascends in a westerly 

 direction, is clothed with those species of Eucalyptus, called 

 the Blue Gum and Iron bark of large dimensions, Melaleuca 

 ■styphelioides, thirty feet high, Tristaiiia albicans, Acacia elata, 

 a tali tree forty feet high, seen also at Springwood last year — 

 Elceodeiidron australe, Cargillea australis, a species of Athero- 



Journ. ofBot. Vol. IV. No. 30, November, 1841. 2 n 



