344 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
latter spot, the Hibiscus Hugelii is seen, and a beautiful 
oak-leaved Lasiopetalum, with large lilac inflorescence; a 
dwarfish arborescent species of Dryandra, with white | 
flowers and small holly-like leaves, is common among the 
limestone rocks, as far as Mount Eliza. Banksia Men- 
ziesii and Frazeri, are the individuals of this genus which 
grow nearest the coast; the B. Menziesii is a beautiful | 
shrub, its flowers varying from a deep iron-red in every 
shade to pale yellow. Half way between Freemantle and - 
Perth, our Mahogany and Red Gum make their appearance; 
these are two of the finest species of Eucalyptus. Frazer - 
describes our Red Gum as a gigantic Angophora, from which 
I judge the species is not known at Sydney; it has more the 
habit of the English Oak than any of our forest-trees. The 
Mahogany is a valuable timber for house or ship building; 
the serpentine varieties, thus named from the undulating 
form assumed by the vessels of the wood, are very curious, : 
and so far as I have observed only found in the Genus 
Eucalyptus. One large Banksia, the native Mangite, grows 
with the Red Gum and Mahogany; it passes for the B. 
grandis of Linneus, but does not answer well to the de- 
scription. The lips of the follicles, which Brown describes as 
smooth in B. grandis, in our plant are always covered with 
rusty down, the leaves in luxuriant specimens are two feet 
long and two inches broad, the spikes of flowers from four- 
teen to sixteen inches: the natives, men, women, and children, 
live for five or six weeks principally upon the honey which 
they suck from the flowers of this fine tree. One of the most 
striking plants to a stranger is our common Blackboy,* 2 fine 
arborescent species of Xanthorrhea, growing from ten to 
fifteen feet high, with a trunk about a foot in diameters and 
. 8 flower-stalk almost as high as the plant itself; the common 
. kind is sometimes repeatedly branched in a dichotomous 
manner, all the branches of equal thickness. The. SP 
the town of Freemantle now stands was originally. 
= : * The common Scotch appellation of the Black-berry | or Bramble- berry: 
