BY J. 11. MAIDEN. 775 



*' On the isle is fresii water; and cabbage palm, wood-sorrel, sow-thistle, 

 and samphire abounding in some places on the shore, we brought on board 

 as much of each sort as the time we had to gather them would admit. These 

 cabbage-trees or palms {Rhojjalosti/lis lUmeri, J.H.M.) were not thicker than a 

 man's leg, and from ten to twenty feet high. They are of the same genus with 

 tha cocoa-nut tree; like it they have large pinnated leaves, and are the same as 

 the second sort found in the northern parts of New South Wales. The 

 cabbage is, properly speaking, the bud of the tree; each tree producing but 

 one cabbage, which is at the crown, where the leaves spring out, and is 

 enclosed in the stem. The cutting ott" the cabbage effectually destroys the 

 tree; so that no more than one can be had from the same stem. The cocoa- 

 nut tree, and some others of the palm kind, produce cabbage as well as 

 these. This vegetable is not only wholesome, but exceedingly palatable, and 

 proved the most agreeable repast we had for some time " (A Voyage towards 

 the South Pole, etc.," by James Cook. London, 1777, pp. 147-150, with a 

 map of Norfolk Isle). 



"Lieut. King describes this island as one entire wood, without a single 

 acre of clear land that had been found when the ' Supply ' left there, and 

 says that the pine-trees rise fifty and sixty feet before they shoot out any 

 branches. There are several other kinds of timber on the island, which, as 

 far as he could examine it, was a rich black mould, with great quantities of 

 pumice stone. The trees are so bound together by a kind of supple-jack 

 that the penetrating into the interior parts of the island was very difficult." 

 (Govr. Phillip in Hist. Kec. N.S.W., Vol. i. Pt. 2, p. 126). 



Bibliography. 

 The following works deal more or less with the vegetation : — 



Cook, Capt. J. — Voyage towards the South Pole, 1772-75. 

 Vol. ii., pp. 147-9. Contain an account of the discover}' of, and a 

 description of, the island. London, 1777. 



FoRSTER, George. — Florulse Insularum Australium Prodromus. 

 Gottingen, 1786. Small 8vo., p. 103 (often quoted as Forst. 

 Prod.). 



Historical Records of New South Wales (Government 

 Printer, Sydney). Contain many references to Norfolk Island. 



White, J. — Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, 1790. 

 Hunter, J. — An Historical Journal of the Transactions at 

 Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, clrc., 1793. 



