BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 24:7 
inferior, 2d.; at a less price than this they pay for wine, of which much 
is made. Vegetables an extremely dry summer has made scarce ;_pota- 
toes are 5d. per lb.; horseradish scarcely known; cabbages small, and 
broad beans and peas scanty at all times; melons and water-melons de- 
licious ; cucumbers not good; ornamental shrubs and plants, our stock is 
very small, and of forest-trees less: indeed in a young colony people 
think more of necessities than of ornament. I have sent, during the pre- 
sent year, £60 to various nurserymen and seedsmen in England, and all 
that has arrived safely is about thirty common trees and a few bulbs ; and 
seeds from England will rarely grow. The natural scenery of this coun- 
try is very beautiful, and the coil most prolific to all plants not killed by 
the summer’s drought, which is very great. Last year we had no rain 
from August to the end of March ; the whole face of nature was dried 
up, and “all crops a failure. Thus we are now at famine prices: bread, 
ls. 10d. the 4 lb. loaf; butter, 3s. 3d. per lb.; cheese, 3s. per lb. ; bacon, 
2s.; yet strange to say, I shall sup tonight upon English salmon with 
English lobster-sauce, and wash it down with Perkins’ porter,—positively 
cheaper than butcher’s meat and colonial beer: such is the effect of a 
glutted market. I have bought sauces cheaper than the cost of the bottles 
that contained them. I have bought the same quality and size of shoe for 
3s. and for 25s.; have had English ham at 1d. per lb.; yet I have not 
tasted veal for six years, nor milk for six months. Do you visit .in the 
country ?—cold tea, without milk, a damper or dough-cake, and perhaps 
mutton, is the extent of hospitality among the middle classes; but ob- 
serve, that perhaps they live twenty miles from a shop or a public-house. 
The great drawback to this country is want of coal and want of 
water: the latter is abundant beneath the surface, but mostly brackish ; 
pleasant rather than otherwise when you are used to it, but not fit for 
washing, etc. As to botany, almost all the Grasses are annual, thus for 
half the year all is barren. Of trees there is little variety. The eternal 
Gum_-tree, all of the species of which look exactly alike, is everywhere: a 
mighty monarch of the Blue Gum is within a few yards of me; it is 187 
feet high; then there is the funny-looking Grass-tree (Xanthorrhea ar- 
borea, etc.) and the curious Shea Oak (Casuarina), and the very beautiful 
native Cherry that has the stone outside, Hrocarpus cupressiformis. The 
native Pine too is beautiful (Callitris australis), and the Honeysuckle 
(Banksia integrifolia). The ugliest tree I ever saw, the Hpacris, covers 
ali the hills, mixed with numerous Composite. The papilionaceous plants 
are beautiful.” 
Campanula rotundifolia: roadsides, under Giggleswick Scars; com- 
mon.—C. latifolia: not uncommon under stone walls, etc., about Settle ; 
as on Ribbleside, at Cammock, Mill Island ; Cammock Tan near Cotteral 
Hall, ete. See ‘ Phytologist,’ p. 174. 
Does Actinocarpus Damasonium still grow on Clapham Heath, in Surrey, 
where it was found by Lawson nearly two hundred years ago? 
Gentiana Pneumonanthe, near Clapham, Yorkshire (Lawson): has this 
plant been recently found in the Craven district ? 
Rheum nobile-—From Dr. Hooker’s ‘ Himalayan Plants.’ This grand 
