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table creation, either with regard to medicine, manufactures, or in a 
domestic point of view. 
“The inestimable truth, that we may safely deduct the closest affi- 
nities of the medicinal properties of plants from their natural alliances 
—a truth which achieved the most complete triumph of the natural 
system over all artificial classifications—has generally guided me in 
tracing out which plants might be administered in medicine. By this 
guidance I observed, that our Pimelew are pervaded by that acridity 
for which the bark of Daphne Mezereum is employed ; that our Poly- 
gala veronicea, the only described Australian species of a large genus, 
and in close relation to one lately discovered in the Chinese empire, 
not only agrees, like some kinds of Comesperma, with the Austrian 
Polygala amara, in those qualities for which that plant has been admi- 
nistered in consumption, but also participates in the medicinal virtue 
of Polygala senega, from North America. Gratiola latifolia and Gra- 
tiola pubescens, Convolvulus erubescens, and the various kinds of 
Mentha, are not inferior to similar European species. The bark of 
Tasmania aromatica appears to me to possess the medicinal power of 
the Wintera bark, gathered from a similar tree in Tierra del Fuego ; 
and its fruit is allied to that of the North American Magnolie used 
in cases of rheumatism and intermittent fever. The whole natural 
order of Goodeniacez, with the exception, perhaps, of a few species, 
contains a tonic bitterness never recognized before, and discernible in 
many plants in so high a degree, that I was induced, for this reason, 
to bestow upon a new genus from the interior the name of Picrophyta; 
this property, which indicates a certain alliance to Gentianee, 
deserves the more consideration, as the true Gentianez are so spar- 
ingly distributed through Australia, while the Goodeniacee form 
everywhere here a prominent feature in the vegetation. Our Alps, how- 
ever, enrich us also with a thick-rooted Gentian (G. Diemensis), cer- 
tainly as valuable as the officinal Gentiana lutea; and in the spring, 
Sabza ovata, Sabea albidiflora, and Erythraa Australis, might also be 
collected on account of their bitterness. The bark of the Australian 
Sassafras tree (Atherospermum moschatum) has already obtained 
some celebrity as a substitute for tea ;—administered in a greater con- 
centration, it is diaphoretic, as well as diuretic, and has for this rea- 
son already been practically introduced into medicine by one of our 
eminent physicians. Isotoma axillaris surpasses all other indigenous 
Lobeliacez in its intense acridity, and can be therefore only cau- 
tiously employed instead of Lobelia inflata. The root of Malva 
Behriana scarcely differs from that of Althea officinalis, and the Salep 
