16 



Extract from a letter from Ronald Gunn, Esq. to Dr. Lindley. 



" Hobarton, Van Diemen's Land, 23d Sept. 1839. 



" My dear Sir, — Your letter of the 23rd February last, 

 with your ' Observations on the effect of Frost on Plants,' 

 only reached me yesterday, and I now hasten to acknowledge 

 their receipt. Your observations on Frost are highly inte- 

 resting, and I cannot do better than at once communicate to 

 you such remarks as a perusal of it has called forth, as far as 

 relates to the Plants of Australia. I find that all the Plants 

 of Van Diemen's Land, with one or two exceptions, appear to 

 have resisted the cold, although the majority of Australian 

 plants did not ; but that is hardly to be wondered at when they 

 are principally found near the sea in lat. 34*^. 



" Acacia. Of this genus A. affinis and diffusa will, I 

 think, always be found hardy, also probably melanoxylon, al- 

 though the latter usually grows in shaded umbrageous ravines, 

 and therefore in its natural state is protected from all frosts 

 until very old. The fate of A. verticillata astonishes me, as 

 I consider it a decidedly hardy species. A. sophora grows in 

 the sands by the sea shore and there onlify and I find will not 

 stand well in gardens here, principally from the impossibility 

 of providing it with a suitable soil. I found the frosts at 

 Launceston, affected the young branches in my garden. I am 

 not aware of any other of the species being indigenous to 

 Van Diemen's Land. 



*' Aster argophyllus is only found in very damp shaded 

 warm ravines, where it is, in its oldest state, sheltered by the 

 large Eucalypti. It is our tenderest shrubby aster, and the 

 young shoots were injured by the frost every winter, in the 

 late Mr. Robert Lawrence's garden at Launceston, where 

 exposed. You will find A. viscarius, and indeed almost every 

 species hardy, except argophyllus and another, which is only 

 found on sandhills near the sea. 



*' Banksia. No species in your list belong to Van Die- 

 men's Land. 



" Billardiera longifolia is not our's either, but I think 

 some of our species would be found hardy. B. longiflora, it is 

 true, usually grows in thickets, twining round shrubs, so that 

 it is never exposed to frost in its natural state. 



" Correa alba only exists here on the sandhills and rocks 

 within a few yards of the sea, and is not found inland any- 



