BY CHARLES MOORE, ESQ. 207 



people make their fishing-nets and lines, and it does not, it would 

 appear, easily rot. It is not however so easily prepared as that 

 from the Green Kurrajong Hibiscus heteroplnjllus . Concerning 

 this plant, Mr. Lardner, of Grafton, who is well acquainted with 

 the mode of preparing its fibre for use, remarks, " Both the wood 

 and bark are hard, and a good deal of crushing is required to 

 get the fibre." The bark contains a very large quantity of strong 

 mucilaginous matter, which no washing will entirely remove. 

 The fibre is very long, and not interlaced as in the nettle, it is 

 very strong when moist, but becomes hard and brittle if much of 

 the glutinous substance is allowed to remain in it. 



Having thus adverted to the plants known as Kurrajong I 

 shall now proceed to notice a tree, the inner bark of which 

 furnishes a coarse but valuable fibre, which has been long known 

 and used by the settlers on the Clarence and Richmond, in which 

 districts it is most common, and where it usually attains a very 

 large size. This tree was described by me from a dried specimen 

 furnished by the late Dr. Stephenson, being then unknown to 

 botanists, as a new species of Brachychiton. The dried flowers 

 had a dull brownish colour, which I then supposed was some- 

 thing of the natural colour when fresh. I therefore called it B. 

 luridum. Since that time I have had many opportunities of 

 seeing this fine tree in flower, and no name could have been more 

 appropriate than that of luridum, a name adopted on my 

 authority by Dr. Miiller in his Fragmenta, and by Mr. Bentham 

 in the Flora of Australia. Instead of being lurid, the flowers, 

 which are large, somewhat bell-shaped, are of a beautiful rose 

 colour, and as these appear before the new leaves the tree being 

 almost deciduous no finer sight could be imagined than a large 

 tree in full flower. It is called in the districts referred to, 

 " Sycamore," and its bark may be got under that name in any 

 quantity, at a very moderate rate. The only other indigenous 

 plants to which I shall invite attention as fibre bearing kinds, are 

 an aroidaceous plant, called by settlers Traveller's Grass, and 

 the Gigantic Lily ; the first of these Gymnostacliys anceps is 

 well known, and abounds in all thickly wooded situations along 

 the coast line, having an inland range of about 50 miles. 

 It bears a leaf similar to the flag or Iris, and attains a height 



