60 



southern and western states of America I saw the plant 

 naturalized. It is called " cocklebur " there and it makes its first 

 appearance in the spring. The pigs are very fond of the young 

 plants, but almost invariably die after eating them, 

 Xanthostrumarin, a poisonous substance, has been isolated from 

 the alcoholic extract. The castor oil plant (Iticinus communis), 

 a native of Arabia and North America, so common in the waste 

 places of Brisbane, adorns the gardens of Europe and North 

 America. Other than here, I have seen it as a weed only in 

 Spain. The seeds contain a deadly toxnlbuwin, 10 or 12 of the 

 seeds will kill a man, and it is a miraculous thing that more 

 accidents do not happen where the plant is naturalized ; the poison 

 is not contained in the oil. Ponicum cms (pdli, the loose panic- 

 grass of Europe, has become naturalized in Queensland. 



A water plant only lately introduced into Queensland, and 

 already naturalized, FAchlwrnia cntssipes, has a pretty but short- 

 lived flower and beautiful green leaves. I saw rivulets, ponds 

 and small lakes in Mexico and South America, its original 

 home, full of it. 



A plant which has become familiar to our eye at home 

 looks like a friend if we meet it in a strange country. When I 

 came down from the north of the United States to New Orleans 

 and saw in the public gardens the same ornamental plants 

 which grow in Brisbane, I felt myself at home, and missed Mr. 

 Bailey. I missed him more, I must say, in the Botanical 

 Gardens in Havana, because there were no labels on any plants^ 

 except on a Ficus religiosa, the chief ornamental tree of Cuba,- 

 and tltat one was wrong, it belonged to the tree in the opposite 

 corner. 



The Australian eucalypts are now found acclimatised 

 over a large part of the world, and even in the warmer places of 

 Germany. In hot dry countries, like California, Texas, 

 Arizona, Mexico, and South America, Eucali/ptus (jlohulus is an 

 inmate of all public squares and gardens. I have read in several 

 books that it thrives on the Western slopes of the Andes, but it 

 is a mistake. There nothing grows except a few straggling 

 Cacti, In the Alameda of Mexico city the chief ornamental 

 trees are the high Eucalypts, towering over the whole crowd of 

 other plants. Our large Indo-Australian staghorn ferns 

 {P I at y cerium (jrande and P. alcicorne) and the nest fern 

 (Asjileuiion jiidus) are fastened high up in their branches. The 

 Paseo di Riforma, the fashionable carriage drive from the City 



