186 PLANTS WHICH HAVE BECOME NATURALIZED IN N. S. W., 



conveyed to us over the ocean by birds, by currents of air, or by 

 the woo], manes, tails, &c, of imported quadrupeds. As the great 

 majority of these plants, now common to Australia and other 

 regions, were not known to the first colonists, and do not appear 

 in the lists of plants published by the early Botanists, it is only 

 reasonable to suppose that such species were not found in N. S. 

 Wales at the beginning of the Century. Brown's Prodomus, 

 which gives an account of the Plants collected by him between the 

 years 1802 and 1805, is a most useful guide, so far as it goes, in 

 determining what species are really indigenous ; but even in that 

 most valuable work we are somewhat staggered in finding Solanum 

 nigrum, Verbena officinalis, Prunella vulgaris, and Cynodou 

 dactylon recorded amongst Australian plants. Judging a priori, 

 it might be thought that the first three of these came from Europe 

 and the last from India, but such does not appear to have been 

 the case. Some years ago, when Gyperus rotundus (then called 

 C. hydra) made its appearance in the (Government Gardens in 

 Parramatta, Oaley the Botanist regarded it as a foreign impor- 

 tation, and so it was looked upon until the publication of the 

 Seventh Vol. of our Flora, when Mr. Bentham proved from 

 specimens forwarded to him from Australia, that it was a plant of 

 very wide distribution, and identical with Brown's C. littoralis. 

 Some years after Caley had left the colony, he wrote to Mr. G. 

 Suttor, F.L.S., from the Island of St. Vincent, where he held the 

 office of Director of the Botanical Garden, referring to the Gyperus 

 which he had noticed in Parramatta and identifying it with the 

 weed which was doing so much mischief to gardens and plantations 

 in the West Indies. Now, this circumstance shows us how 

 difficult it is to determine, in some instances, whether certain 

 plants are indigenous or not. The same remark is applicable to 

 Cynodon dactylon, the " couch grass " of the colonists, for, whilst 

 Brown collected it at Port Jackson in the beginning of the present 

 century, it is known to be identical with the Doorba (sometimes 

 written Doorwa) or Hurry alee grass of India and to spring up 

 generally in ground that has been cultivated. On the flats near 

 some of our rivers, there is a grass called " Water Couch " 



