EUCALYPTUS TREES, 593 
the interior, and which indicated to many a traveler, 
when almost perishing, the place of relief. Should 
we not be able to show in culture the poisonous herbs 
against which the squatter as well as the explorer 
must guard ? Of the 110 salt-bushes of Australia, 
some are ascertained to be eligible as culinary escu- 
lents ; ‘the majority of these plants are of high value 
for sheep - pasture. These, with other salsolaceous 
plants of other countries, I should certainly like to 
see well represented in a scientific garden, as well for 
instruction as for test. Very many plants can be best 
examined for characteristics when in living freshness, 
The number of Australian Villarsie known to R. 
Brown, in 1810, was only two or three ; chiefly through 
my own exertions we are now acquainted with seven- 
teen; the delicate and often fringed membranes of 
their flowers, while they deliquesce in museum speci- 
mens, can be seen in our tanks at a glance. You can 
recognize the loveliness, and, above all, the irritabil- 
ity of the stylidia, of which we doubled the number 
since the time of R. Brown,* only, in the living state, 
the column of the flower snatching over at the least 
touch —a fact which even the keen eye of the natives 
seems to have frequently overlooked, It was largely 
through the exertions of our botanic department that 
the twelve species of Myoporums and Eremophila, 
recorded in R. Brown’s Prodromus, were advanced to 
sixty in number; and it was through similar scien- 
tific exertions that the seventy Goodeninaceaw became 
‘increased to one hundred and eighty, the majority 
highly deserving of culture, and many available for 
medicinal use. 
* Nuw nvarly 100 stylidia are Kucwno. 
29 
