966 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
we calied at Mauritius for water, and sailed thence on Christmas 
Day for Freemantle, which was reached on the 2nd February, 
1831. On arriving here, Capt. Stirling, the Lieutenant-Governor, 
managed to persuade Mr. Tanner to stay in Western Australia, 
and by this means we after all remained at our original destination. 
“In the course of time Mr. Tanner found that things did not 
prosper quite as well as he bad been persuaded to anticipate, and 
consequently I found no difficulty in having my agreement with 
him cancelled. After working for some time under Mr. Drummond, 
at the Governor's garden, and for different other people, I entered 
the services of Mr. J. Phillips as gardener, and lived with him for 
several years at his place on the Canning River, which is a tribu- 
tary of the Swan. Whilst in this occupation, I sowed, in the 
spring of 1833, a bed with ‘Cape Spinach,’ the seed of which 
had been obtained from Mr. Tanner, and brought by him from 
the Cape. This Cape spinach was no other than the plant now 
well known as ‘ Doublegee,’ or, as we in the early days of the 
settlement called it, ‘Tanner’s Curse.’ It was given this name 
by the settlers on account of the annoyance the spinous seeds 
caused to the labourers. The weed spread very rapidly, and at 
every turn interfered with our work. The seeds even fastened to 
the staves of casks that had to be rolled up the banks of the river, 
no wharfs or similar accommodation being known then, and 
pricked the hands and arms of the workmen ; to bales and other 
goods it stuck still worse, and in the field it was a constant 
nuisance. 
“The spinach did not prove very palatable, and was never sown 
by me again, but others may probably have done so before its 
uselessness became generally known and the plant acknowledged 
a thorough nuisance. Its offensiveness is not so apparent now- 
adays as in the early times, when everything had to be done by 
hand, and without the appliances now in use. In those days it 
became generally known in the small settlement that Mr. Tanner 
had brought the seed from the Cape as that of a reputed culinary 
vegetable ; and although he made this mistake unwittingly, his 
name remained attached to the weed among the old settlers.” 
The foregoing conclusively proves that Emex australis is not 
indigenous to Australia. 
