46 NATIVE HONESUCKLES OR BANKSIAS. 
VII—THE NATIVE HONEYSUCKLES OR 
BANKSIAS 
AND ALLIED PLANTS. 
Tue order or family of plants to which the Banksias belong, 
derives its name Proteaceee from a South African genus, Linné’s 
Protea, and this again was called so, because some species were 
thought to be as mutable in their appearance as the mythic 
Proteus of the Greek legends. Discoveries in Australia, where 
this order is more extensively developed than even in extra-tropic 
Africa, have fully justified the name of the order, for although 
hardly any herbaceous plants occur among the several hundred 
Proteaceze, now known, yet these bushes and trees exhibit in 
foliage as well as disposition and form of flowers such great 
diversity, as hardly is to be found within the limits of any other 
order of the whole vegetable empire. The plants of the genus 
Banksia are leadingly drawn forward on this occasion as examples 
for instruction, because they are among the largest and most 
stately of proteaceous plants, and are in our colony, like in many 
other parts of Australia, well known by the rather inappropriate 
name Honeysuckles, none haying resemblance to British Honey- 
suckles, although from their flowers secrets a sweetish liquid 
also, sought by bees. Thus also the magnificent Protea mellifera 
of our gardens is called the Cape-Honeysuckle, on account of the 
melliginous nectar contained in their great flowercups. 
The Banksias are of historic interest, inasmuch as the genus 
was dedicated already by the younger Linné in 1781 to Sir 
Joseph Banks, from whom the Swedish naturalist received 
branchlets of those species, which in Captain Cook’s first voyage 
more than 100 years ago (1770) were gathered by Banks at 
Botany-Bay and a few other places of the east-coast of Australia. 
These were the first plants, peculiar to Australia, which became 
known descriptively, except some brought by Dampier from the 
north-west coast in 1688 and 1699, and .figured in his and 
Dr. Plukenet’s works. 
