606 



specimen of art : at its northern extremity, where the road, at right 

 angles to the line of the bridge, and parallel to the course of the river, 

 is cut out of the face of a solid rock, grows Galium boreale, at this 

 season scarcely visible. At this point I re-entered my own county — 

 Moray. Two miles farther down lies the beautifully situated village 

 of Rothes, with its old castle, romantic hum and fertile fields. On 

 the inverted root of a tree, lying above a heap of stones, I observed a 

 single head of Lamium purpureum, one of the earliest flowering and 

 by no means least beautiful plants in the climate of Moray. 



I left Rothes to-day — the weather still very fine. As I approached 

 Elgin, the difierence in the progress of the larch towards its summer 

 foliage, began distinctly to appear ; and Ulex europaeus, now nearly 

 in full bloom, showed the superior mildness of the climate of the 

 " How of Moray." The gardens and shrubberies were half clad in 

 green. After resting an hour or two, 1 left Elgin, passed the pine- 

 clad Knock of Alves, the well-known station of the beautiful Linnaea, 

 and was soon once more in Forres, where a week ago everything wore 

 the appearance of winter, but where everything now is smiling into 

 summer sweetness, and where, both in summer and winter, there 

 blooms many a tender " bell and flow'ret," that may well vie with 

 England's fairest. I am, Dear Sir, 



Your's faithfully, 



J. B. Brichan. 



To the Editor of ' The Phytologist.' 



Art. CXLVII. — Notice of '■A Visit to the Australian Colonies. By 

 James Backhouse.' London : Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1843. 



(Continued from p. 577). 



New South Wales. — The continent of New Holland, as far as vi- 

 sited by James Backhouse, seems less attractive to a botanist than the 

 adjacent islands ; still there is sufficient to invest it with an interest 

 surpassing that possessed by most other countries with which we are 

 on a similar footing of familiarity. There is nothing to compare with 

 the gigantic forests which form so distinguishing a character of Tas- 

 mania, or with the wild luxuriance of Norfolk Island ; yet the pines 

 to which that island has given a name, may be seen, even at Sydney, 

 towering here and there above the surrounding scenery, and proclaim- 

 ing a climate different from our own ; and there is a host of trees and 

 plants altogether distinct from those of Tasmania. 



