608 FOREST CULTURE AND 
showed themselves inocuous. Stypandra glauca is 
reported to produce complete blindness of sheep, in 
some districts of West Australia, the eyes, it is said, 
assuming a blue tinge throughout. Unless this grass 
lily has been confused with an allied and externally- 
similar weed—namely, Agrostocrinum stypandroides 
—we have again a plant which, with capriciousness, 
has hitherto baffled our toxicologic experiments. An- 
guillaria and Burchardia, which, early in the Spring, 
sprinkle their pretty blossoms so universally over the 
pastures of the whole of extra- tropic Australia, pro- 
duce, so I have ascertained, inocuous bulbs, although 
belonging to a tribe of plants which includes the 
dreadfully-deleterious Veratrums and Sabadilla. 
All this shows that an ample field for observation 
is also open for us in this direction, and this more 
particularly in a young country like ours. We are 
no longer in the earliest youth of our colonial exist- 
ence, when the few scientific questions, arising then 
in very small communities, could receive, at long 
intervals, their answer from the urbanity of leading 
Eur pean authorities, on whose professional advice or 
scientific opinion Australia, however, had no claim. 
But, in the vigor and celerity of our colonial advance- 
ments, we can afford no longer to wait the many 
months which must elapse before, on every ques- 
tion, the needful scientific information is obtained 
from abroad. Indeed, as might be expected, the ap- 
plications for advice to a botanic department are now 
of daily occurrence, and ever increasing with the pop- 
ulation and its varied enterprises. A central instita- 
tion for phytologic information requires to be main- 
tained among us somewhere, whether in this metrop- 
