FAGUS ANTARCTICA OF FORSTER. 151 
In 1831 and 1833 I received specimens from the late Mr 
Lawrence, marked, ** Betula antarctica,” but without flower 
or fruit. Under this name it is alluded to in Mr Back- 
house’s very interesting account of the ‘ most common and 
remarkable Indigenous Plants of Van Dieman's Land, given 
in the Van Dieman’s Land Almanack for 1835, and repub- 
lished in Hooker’s Companion to the Botanical Magazine, Vol. 
IL p. 65.—-* Betula antarctica,” that intelligent gentle- 
man observes, **or Australian Myrtle, is a beautiful dark 
green-leaved tree, growing in many parts of the island, and 
forming ‘the great * Myrtle-forest, twenty miles long, in 
Emu Bay. It is found on the side of Mount Wellington, 
but has not yet been successfully introduced into gardens. 
This tree, however, is not a species of Betula; the young 
shoots, in their earlier stages, appearing to have been mis- 
taken for the male blossoms by the English botanists." 
In 1837 and 1838, I had the pleasure to receive numer- 
ous specimens from my invaluable correspondent Mr Gunn, 
and from Dr Milligan. From these gentlemen we learn that 
it isa tree, forming in the western parts of Van Dieman's 
Land, dense forests, where the land is always of the richest 
quality; and of so umbrageous a character are they, that 
cryptogamous plants alone can exist beneath them, or trees 
and shrubs of peculiar habits. Herbaceous plants, as far as 
can be recollected, are rarely or never seen beneath their 
shade. The timber resembles Elm in appearance, and trees 
have been measured, whose trunks are upwards of thirty feet 
in circumference. Dr Milligan found it difficult to procure 
Specimens with female flowers, well displayed, on which also 
are male blossoms, the former being axillary, and developed 
only with the growth of young wood, after the latter are 
fully disclosed on bracteas. ‘When the female flowers are 
much advanced, we consequently find no male blossoms, but 
9n some of our specimens we have remarked both; as shown 
in our figure. I shall dedicate this plant to the. zealous 
.. botanist, who, if not the first to notice the plant, is, as far as 
5 4 know, the first who has referred it to its proper Genus. - 
