MAY. 103 



The author of " The Picture of Australia" re- 

 marks, that the acacias in all their varieties are 

 very elegant, and says that " they are among the 

 few plants in the Austrahan forest which an 

 European would be disposed to consider orna- 

 mental. There are more than one hundred 

 species scattered over Australia, and of these a 

 considerable number belong to the leafless kind. 

 Their flowers are very beautiful, and the leaf- 

 less variety is probably not found in any other 

 part of the world." 



Some pretty species of the flower called 

 lousewort, are now opening in gardens, but 

 they mostly require considerable care in their 

 culture. Their leaves are cut into fine segments 

 like those of our wild kinds ; and their flowers 

 are chiefly pink or purple, but sometimes yel- 

 low. When the white, red, and yellow colours 

 mingle in their blossoms, they are said by 

 Loudon to give to the flower the tints of flames 

 of fire. They generally grow on very elevated 

 situations, and are found more than a thousand 

 toises above the level of the sea. Notwith- 

 standing their acridity the movmtam goats browse 

 on them in the pastures where they are plentiful. 

 One species of this plant will not grow in the 

 English garden, though some pains have been 

 taken to raise it from seeds sent from the north 

 of Europe to the botanic garden of Cambridge. 

 It was a flower which much interested Linnaeus 

 and other Swedish botanists. This is the 

 flower called Charles's sceptre, (Pedicularis 

 sceptrum Carolinumj) a name given to it by 



