738 



tlcstroycd for tlie sake of their trunks and leaves. The trunks, which are sometimes 

 eighty feet high, and are rough with scars where the leaves have fallen off, are occa- 

 .sionally split, and converted into posts for fencing ; they are also used for slabs in tem- 

 porary buildings. The inside being rather sweet, and not hard, though fibrous, is eaten 

 by pigs. The mature leaves are used for thatching, those just beginning to expand, 

 for making hats, and the heart, or cabbage, of the young, unexpanded leaves, is eaten 

 either raw or cooked. A heart-leaved species of pepper climbs like ivy among the lof- 

 ty trees, and hangs in festoons from their branches, almost to the ground. Ferns and 

 orchidaceous plants abound on the trunks and limbs of many of the trees. One of 

 tlie latter, Sarcochilus falcatus, with blossoms nearly as white as snowdrops, is now in 

 Hower. In these forests, there are many epiphytes of the Orchis tribe, the habits of 

 which are worthy of notice, both as exhibited here, and in other parts of the Colony. 

 Dendrobium speciosum generally grows in fissures of the sandstone rocks, among the 

 loose fragments, mixed with vegetable matter, but I once met with it, of extraordinary 

 size, in the cleft of an old fig-tree, among vegetable remains. D. linguiforme gene- 

 rally creeps on grit rocks, rarely on the living bark of figs and Casuarinse. The other 

 species of Dendrobium, with the genera Sarcochilus and Gunnia, grow on the bark of 

 living trees. Once T saw Dendrobium calamifolium on a rock ; but both this and the 

 other species growing on living trees, begin to languish when the trees to which they 

 are attached, die, probably from the portion of their roots adhering to the bark becom- 

 ing dried ; a circumstance that is prevented, when they are cultivated in England, 

 by the moist atmosphere of an orchideous-house. The Australian species of Cymbi- 

 dium universally strike their roots into the decaying portions of trees, in which they 

 may sometimes be traced many feet. Once only, I met with one growing from among 

 the paper-like lamina; of the bark of Melaleuca viridiflora, and it looked sickly." — 

 p. 426. 



On the way to Shoal Haven, Seaforthia elegans is plentiful in shady 

 ])laces, and many parts of the forest are gay with a species of Goodia, 

 which forms a large shrub, covered with racemes of yellow, pea-like 

 blossoms, tinged with orange. A species of indigo, with rosy pink 

 flowers, and tree-nettles, one of which was sixteen feet in circum- 

 ference, attracted our traveller's attention. Asplenium Nidus and 

 Acrostichum alcicorne were growing on the limbs of enormous fig- 

 trees, and even some of the lofty cabbage-palms were encircled by 

 the latter, while ferns of less magnitude — Polypodium tenellum and 

 cptercifolium, and Niphobolus rupestris — were climbing the trunks of 

 trees like ivy, and others — as Adiantum formosum and assimile, Doo- 

 dia aspera and Lomaria Patersonii — were scattered about the surface 

 of the ground, intermiugled with tree-ferns of the genus Alsophila, 

 besides Calanthe veratrifolia, and several other terrestrial Orchideae. 

 In a subsequent walk, the rock-lily, Dendrobium speciosum, was in 

 ]jk)Ssom on a rock, with a spike of white flowers, fading into yellow. 

 Other s])ecimens of the tree-nettle were measured, and found to be 

 eighteen, twenty, and twenty-one feet in circumference. These are 



