BY JOSEPH LAUTERER, M.D. 59 



has run out of the gardens and become a troublesome weed. I 

 met it in the back streets of Naples. Datura stramonium (the 

 thorn apple), imported as a medicinal plant from Europe, has 

 been seen by me in New South Wales covering large tracts in 

 Hill End and Tambaroora gold mining districts. I noticed 

 horses and cattle eating it ; they can stand a good deal of 

 the poison which it contains. 



The red-head [Asclepias curassavica) was brought as a pot 

 plant from South America, together with a brown butterfly, 

 Danae FJrippus. It is quite naturalised in Queensland. I have 

 seen it in Argentina and Brazil. The butterflies, and some other 

 species of the same genus, hovered round the flower exactly like 

 they do here. 



Some plants revel in a strange country, and find it better to 

 their taste than their home. Lantana Camara, brought to us as 

 an ornamental shrub, has run all over Queensland, greatly to 

 the detriment of our beautiful scrub-flora. In South America 

 it behaves very decently and keeps its place. The leaves are dried 

 by the Indians of Uruguay, and used instead of tea. It afiected 

 my risorial nerves when I saw the hateful plant growing and 

 attended carefully in the public gardens of Chile and Argentina ; 

 but how much was I surprised when I found it in my own garden 

 in old Freiburg, growing in a storm-protected corner, and ad- 

 mired by everybody ? My indignation prevailed — I pulled it out. 

 All the gardens in Europe have it, mostly of the yellow 

 variety. It is kept down by pruning, and is taken in the warm- 

 house during the winter. 



Another troublesome weed of Queensland, Af/eratum mexica- 

 nuiii, brought here from Mexico as a garden plant, has overrun 

 many parts of Queensland. I have seen it in Central America where 

 it has flowers of a prettier blue and larger than in Brisbane. I did 

 not see it again until I arrived in Switzerland. There it was in 

 the gardens of Zurich, highly prized as a fashionable pot plant. 

 I was tempted to weed it out, as I did in my Brisbane home. 

 I did not meet with the "Old Maid" — Vinca rosea — of East 

 India, which is naturalised all along the Queensland coast. 



Plants with hooks and stiff hairs on the fruit are liable to be 

 carried far and wide and to become naturalised. When I firsL 

 came here it surprised me to find the bur- weed {XantJiimn stru- 

 marium). It is a native of Asia and Europe, and when I was a 

 student I journeyed many miles to look for the rare plant, 

 but never found it, until I came to Queensland. In the 



