228 — description of a Botany bay plant. Oct: 16: 
of a gummy nature, which the natives make use of 
for nearly the same purposes.as we might do tar; 
employing it as a kind of cement for joining pieces 
of wood together. But though they be often much 
pinched for want of food, I do not find that ever they 
have been observed to eat it, The qualities of this 
gummy substance have not, that I know of, been 
ascertained by any chemical analysis, or economical 
experiments. It seems not to be in the smallest de- 
gree of an inflammable nature : for though it is very 
common in those parts for the natives to set fire to 
the dry grafs that at certain seasons covers the whole 
surface of the ground, and though by that means 
these stumps that grow up among it are in general 
so scorched as to have afsumed a black and smoky 
appearance, yet they never seem to have actually 
taken fire, or to have suffered any material injury 
from that cause. ; 
The leaves are broader and more rigid than any 
kind of grafs known in Europe, but they are neither 
so stiff nor so thick as the finest of the aloe tribe. 
The flower stem is solid, not tubulated nor jointed. 
It is of a firm, woody, fibrous consistence, very tough 
and elastic. It rises to the height of six feet or more, 
and is quite straight, and smooth on the surface ; it 
is therefore employed by the natives fdr fhafts to 
‘their darts, and other purposes of that sort. I fhould 
think that some of these rods must have been brought 
to Britain. But none of them that I have heard of 
have as yet reached Scotland. On the top it sup- 
ports a panicle containing secds, the whole panicle 
not unlike in appearance to that of the elymus are~ 
OO 
