LATE ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ESQ. 295 



of this mountain is named by the aborigines, Tomah, and is 

 distant from the Hawkesbury ford, at Richmond, twenty miles. 

 Upon entering the forest, the traveller is struck with the 

 change of appearance of the timbers from \X\e FAicalypii of 

 the open country, the stupendous size and extraoi-dinary 

 windings of the climbers, particularly a Cissiis^ and with the 

 magnificence of the tree-ferns, Dicksonia antartica, some of 

 which were thirty feet in height, and six to fourteen inches 

 in diameter. In truth all that striking change to tropical 

 scenery meets the eye, which appears so remarkable at the 

 ' mountain top', above the Five Islands (Illavvarra.) Amidst a 

 diversity of plants, and great variety of cryptogamous botany, 

 we had to regret there was no grass for our exiiausted pack- 

 horses; however, among the ferns which everywhere covered 

 the surface of the ground, a species of Senecio was sparingly 

 scattered, upon whose heads they were observed to browse. 



" 29th. It was my intention to have spent a whole day at 

 this encampment, in order to examine the summit of Tomah — 

 the consideration, however, that it afforded my horses no grass, 

 determined me to proceed forward early in the afternoon, 

 some four or five miles to the westward, where we had been 

 informed some little pasture existed. The timbersofthe forest, 

 as far as I could ascertain them, were two lofty species of Eu- 

 calyptus, one called White Gum, Ceratopetalum apetalum? 

 (I have not the fruit,) Achras australis, Tristania albicans, 

 Oka paniculata, ElcEodendron australe — and by far the more 

 general tree, growing 60 — 70 feet in height, is a species of 

 Atherosperma (Sassafras.) Twining and climbing plants of 

 vaststrengthand magnitude hang from the heads of the loftiest 

 trees, and bore upon their pliant stems abundance of climbing 

 Polypodia, and tufts of a Dendrobium, allied to D. rigidum. 

 Another plant of this beautiful family, rarely to be met with 

 in the colony, I observed in flower sparingly — it v/asSarcochi- 

 lus Jalcatics, of which I also gathered a few living specimens. 

 Hanging in attenuated clusters from the highest branches of 

 the trees, 1 detected a third species of this family, and pro- 

 bably a Dendrobium, not apparently noticed by Mr Brown. 



