300 BIOGHAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 



dure, but of very ordinary size, beneath whose shade exists 

 an underwood so dense as to be difficult of penetration. In 

 these narrow valleys, therefore, which furnish generally at 

 their base a rill of water, it was, I sought to occupy myself in 

 my onset, in my attempts to make myself somewhat acquaint- 

 ed with the vegetation of this neighbourhood, and although 

 the fatigue of climbing sharp acclivities, descending abrupt 

 slopes, and penetrating coppices, almost impervious, was ex- 

 cessive, I cannot say that I was not repaid by the novelty 

 and variety of the plants phcEnogamous as well as cryptoga- 

 ?«o?/s, which these solitudes display. In some open places on the 

 hills, Leptospermum scoparium, referred to by Captain Cook, 

 was in flower, and if its habit reminded me of the colony of 

 Port Jackson, and the friends I had left there, the pretty 

 genus Drosera, so common in Paramatta, and here at this 

 period found in flower, did not fail to stir up within me feel- 

 ings of affectionate remembrance for those whose courtesies I 

 had experienced, and of whose hospitality I have so often 

 partaken. On the skirts of the woods I gathered specimens 

 of Gaultheria antipoda in flower, and young fruit. Upon the 

 trunks of the larger trees were some fine Mosses, and three 

 species of Puhjpodium, besides (to my joy,) a charming plant of 

 OrchidecE, {Earina mitcronata,) with very narrow elongated 

 leaves, bearing white flowers, which were, however, beyond 

 my reach, but of which I shall secure plants on my return 

 again to the colony. Knightia excelsa here grows to the 

 height of sixty feet, and was putting forth its flower-spikes, as 

 was also a tree called by the natives Koa-Koa, which I ap- 

 prehend from its habit to be a Trichilia {Harlighsia spectabi- 

 lis). In spots less secluded from the solar rays than the 

 general mass, I detected Fuchsia excorticata richly in flower; 

 and what really added to the novelty and beauty of the plant 

 is, — its pendant flowers, on their first expansion, are of a blu- 

 ish-green cast, which afterwards change to red; and thus the 

 plant has at the same time flowers of two distinct colours: 

 it forms a small tree of twelve feet in height. Among the 

 Ferns on the hills I observed Thelymitra longi/oUa, Forst. 



