356 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
In thus giving you an account of a few of our more re- 
markable plants, I forgot to notice the only indigenous - 
Palm in this part of the colony, it grows to ten or twelve 
feet high, and about two feet aiameter; the fruit of the 
female palm is like a large pine-apple, it contains many nuts 
about an inch long, covered with — red-coloured arillus, which - 
is a favourite food of the natives. To prepare the nuts and | 
arillus for use, they steep them in water or bury them in the 
earth for some weeks, where they undergo a sort of fermen- 
tation and become wholesome food; when eaten without this 
preparation, they produce violent vomiting and other dan- 
gerous symptoms. . 
HawrHonNpEN Farm, Toonsey VALLEY, 
July 25th, 1839. 
I nave lately crossed the country from the sea-coast to the 
district called by the aborigines Guangan. [believe Guangan, m — 
the native language, signifies sand; but I mean by it the open | 
sandy desert which commences at about eighty miles E.N.E.- 
from Freemantle, and is known to continue in the same - 
direction for two hundred miles. It is curious to observe the 
effect the strong winds from the sea have on different plants; 
the beautiful blue Kennedya, named after our late governor; 
(although I do not know how it differs as a species from 3 
K. Comptoniana,) on the downs near the coast forms an up- 
right bushy shrub, generally about three feet high, with = 
shining trifoliate leaves, the whole plant covered with beat 
tiful flowers, and having no appearance of being a climber. 
It is however easy to see that the same species gradually ; 
- changes into the quinquefid variety, which then runs to the 
top of trees twenty feet high. ic, 
. This is just the commencement of our flowering season. 
retty tetrapetalous monecious plant, which I think forms 
3enus, is now in full bloom on the sandhills I have 
three species of it. Two species of Pterostylis are 
the limestone hills; of one of these there are 
