TO PORT ESSINGTON. 357 
coriaceous leaves bore a small oblong fruit, having a sur- 
rounding calyx like a little acorn, with a thin, but sweet rind ; 
the abundance of this fruit made up for the scantiness of its 
edible parts, it was much sought after by crows and cock- 
atoos. At the head of the Isaacks and in the valley of 
lagoons they found a purple fruit with a many-celled seed- 
vessel; the thin rind had a slightly astringent acidulous 
agreeable taste; the tree had a pinnate leaf resembling that 
ofthe red cedar. Santalum lanceolatum yielded occasionally 
blue edible berries of the size of small cherries. The species 
of Fusanus which is mentioned in Sir Thomas Mitchell’s ex- 
Peditions, gave a rich harvest of fruit in the bottle-tree 
Scrubs west of Darling Downs. A native mulberry with 
small white fruit, of a sweet taste, grew on the fields of lava, 
at the Burdekin; and an edible fruit of a white colour, with 
persistent calyx and viscous, like the fruit of the mistletoe, 
grew on a small tree along the upper course of the same 
river. _ Several species of figs, the rough purple fig Ficus 
muntia, the small round yellow fruit of Ficus australis, and 
the clustered fig of the Burdekin, were successively gathered. 
The latter yielded by far the richest harvest, as numerous 
: of the fruit were sprouting out of the trunk and 
largest. branches from top to bottom. They were of the 
Size of a small garden fig, of a yellow colour when ripe, but 
 Snerally full of small flies and black ants; they were very 
. heavy and indigestible, and the party several times suffered 
from eating. too many of them. Careya arborea Roxb. 
Ve'onging to the Barringtonnee) bore a harmless fruit, 
Which, however, we never found perfectly ripe. The little 
Svoseberry-tree Coniogeton arborescens Bl.? belonging to 
the Terebinthacee bad a fruit of the size of a small com- —— 
Pressed. c erry, which was boiled, when not ripe enough,  - 
© obtain from it an acidulous drink, but which was very 
eee to eat when sufficiently ripened. The seed vessels. 
œ% Pandanus spiralis R. Br. when ripe, contain a vei 
“et pear like pulp between their fibres ; it prove 
~ able at the time, but extremely pungent, and 
