62 NATURALISED AND ACCLIMATISED PLANTS, ETC, 



are no grass trees and no Australian honeysuckles or banksias to 

 be met with in the open gardens of warm countries. In the 

 greenhouses of Europe and America they are considered 

 very interesting. Seeds are sown in summer in sandy peat, and 

 seedlings potted of as soon as they can be handled. Banksias 

 are generally propagated by cuttings of the ripened shoots. In 

 the hothouses of the botanical gardens in Paris (Jfinlin des 

 Plantes) I saw a nice plant of the Australian cork tree ( Duboisia 

 mijoporoulr.si. The plant is wanting in many of the gardens of 

 Australia. The bottle tree f SterciUia rupestrisj is much admired 

 in the public walks of South America. 



Many plants of the Brisbane gardens were met with by me 

 in their native habitat. The pepper tree {ScJimus molle) looks 

 very pretty in Queensland, but it cannot be compared with the 

 plant in its own home on the plateau of Mexico and on the 

 irrigated coasts of Peru and Chili, where the elegant drooping 

 branches with the delicate foliage and the shiny red berries hang 

 over the Indians, and their thatched hovels which are supported 

 by the knarled stems of the trees. 



One of our best ornamental trees is the camphor laurel. It 

 grows well on the coast and high up on the ranges in Queens- 

 land, and in company with Flatanus occidentnlis has been 

 selected as a shade tree in Toowoouiba, Warwick and other 

 places. It looks lovely, but compare it with the Japanese 

 camphor laurels above the Suna Temple in Nagasaki ! Higher 

 than our forest mahogany {Eucah/ptiis microcorijs), and resembling 

 it a little, are the old trees which have been standing there for 

 many centuries protected by the abode of the gods. 



The feather palm [Cocos plumosa), the common palm in the 

 public and private gardens of Brisbane, grows luxuriantly 

 between Santos and San Pablo in Brazil on hill sides and on 

 level country. There were small rivulets along the road and 

 huts of the half-caste population, half Indians, half mulattoes, 

 with not at all a prepossessing appearance. I thought I was 

 walking in a flower garden ; different kinds of begonias were 

 in blossom — too many of one species I thought, but then it 

 was not a garden, it was uncultivated ground. The begonias 

 had become weeds. Over all hung the feathery leaves of Cocos 

 plumosa. 



Trees with a very slow growth will never show to the 

 generation of man who planted them, the awe-inspiring majesty 

 and grandeur, displayed to the eye by their brothers which have 



