42 INTRODUCTION OF SECHIU.M EDULE INTO QUEENSLAND. 



A former Governor of Queensland remarked, on a public 

 occasion, " that in a territory of tlie vast extent of Queensland we 

 find a variety of climates, each of which is capable of bringing 

 to perfection some particular growth or growths of animal or 

 vegetable life. There is thus opened out an immense opportunity 

 of usefulness before persons who ai'e willing to address them- 

 selves to the inviting labor of adding to the productive wealth of 

 each separate district of the colony, by means of the introduction 

 of such novelties of ascertained value as may have only awaited 

 the encouragement of a helping hand in order to settle down and 

 flourish — ^to become acclimatised — in a thoroughly congenial 

 latitude and soil." It is to such a novelty that I desire to ask 

 your attention for a short time this evening. 



In June, 1888, the late Sir Anthony Musgrave, whose 

 intelligent and active interest in the development of the material 

 resources of Queensland will be long and gratefully remembered, 

 suggested to me the advisableness of testing the adaptability, to some 

 part of the colony, of a food-plant well-known to him during his 

 sojourn in Jamaica — namely, the Chocho, as it was there known 

 in the vernacular. The plant having been described in the Ke.w 

 BuUetin, edited by Mr. D. Morris, so long and favourably known 

 as Director of Plantations in Jamaica prior to his appointment 

 as Assistant Director to Royal Gardens, Kew, I wrote to that 

 gentleman for information as to the best mode of procedure in 

 order to procure the plant in question. This resulted, after 

 some correspondence, in the receipt from Mr. Fawcett, Mr. 

 Morris's successor in Jamaica, of a box of fruits of the 

 " Chocho." There were only two alive, these by great good 

 fortune being of distinct varieties ; and having been placed in 

 the care of Mr. William Soutter, the manager of the Acclimati- 

 sation's Society's Gardens, it goes without saying that they were 

 nursed into vigorous growth. The plant having proved to be 

 admirably adapted to the climate of Brisbane, and to be a 

 useful addition to our food-plants, is, I think, worth the place in 

 our transactions which I propose to give it. 



The genus " Sechium," which seems to be peculiar to two 

 species, derives its name from the the Greek scka-o, " to coop 

 up," and that again from sclw^, " a pen for rearing young 

 animals," the fruit apparently having been used for fattening 



