NEW SOUTH WALES. 46i 



SWEET TEA PLANT. 



This is a tree or shrub, from whose leaves it 

 is judged to belong to the genus of Smilax. 

 The leaves are about two inches long, ovato- 

 lanceolate, pointed, entire, marked with three 

 longitudinal ribs, and many transverse elevated 

 veins, smooth and shining above, glaucous 

 beneath, with a thick cartilaginous edge of the 

 substance of the ribs. The leaves have the 

 taste of liquorice root accompanied with bit- 

 ter. They make a kind of tea, not unpleasant 

 to the taste, and good for the scurvy. The 

 plant promises much in the last respect, from 

 its bitter as a tonic, as well as the quantity of 

 iaccharine matter it contains. 



THE RED GUM TREE. 



Tins is a very large and lofty tree, much ex- 

 ceeding the English oak in size. The wood is 

 extremely brittle, and, from the large quantity 

 of resinous gum which it eoi^ains, is of little 

 use but for firewood. The flowers grow in 

 little clusters, or rather umbels, about ten in 

 each, and every flower has a proper partial foot- 

 stalk, about a quarter of an inch in length, 

 besides the general one. The general footstalk 

 is remarkably compressed, and the partial ones 

 are so in some degree. The flowers are yel- 

 lowish, and of a singular structure. The calyx 



