318 Transactions.— Botany. 
class, are, nevertheless, both striking and handsome as to colour; the 
charming and perennial (I was about to write everlasting) ferns continuing 
much the same. 
First and foremost, at this season, to attract attention, are the hanging 
panicles of globular rich scarlet-coloured fruits of the twining and lofty 
climber Hhipogonwm scandens (the **supplejack" of the colonists), their 
flowers in the spring season being much too small and neutral-coloured to 
be easily distinguished; the massy bunches of dark claret-coloured fruits, 
disposed in large spreading umbels, and half hidden under their still larger 
dark thick and quaint leaves, of the Panaw (P. arboreum), which small tree 
also abounds there, are now very conspicuous; the flowers too of this tall 
shrub were not prominently seen displayed in the spring, for a similar 
reason with that of the last; the bright orange-coloured berries of the 
shining-leaved Drimys axillaris, always growing together in tiny clusters of 
three, now show themselves here and there on its coal-black bark branches ;* 
the numerous black woody capsules, like little nuts, of the three Pittosporum 
trees (generally soon splitting broadly open into three equal valves), are 
now shown to perfection among their light-coloured and semi-translucent 
-leaves ; and, when in full fruit, and bursting, the highly curious and showy 
berries (axils) of Alectryon excelsum, somewhat resembling a red raspberry 
with a big glossy black eye in its centre (its seed) ; while the evergreen flat 
mat plant below, overrunning the face of the ground, the dear little humble 
Pratia angulata, which so eoyly displayed its numerous white flowers in the . 
spring and all through the summer, now shows in their stead its peculiar 
crowned fleshy carmine-coloured fruits, which, though (like its flowers) 
modestly half-concealed, will be sure to be quickly detected and 
noticed. 
But I must no longer detain you, but proceed to give the promised list 
of the ferns I saw in that small plot of ground, which, indeed, is the main 
subject of my paper, but which alone is, I fear, to some, the driest part of 
it, unless they happily happen to know the ferns whose names are herein 
given; some of them, however, I have formerly exhibited here at our 
ordinary meetings. 
* Having mentioned the “ coal-black bark" of this pretty tree, I would also give in 
a note an after-thought (which has occurred to me since I left the forests), viz., that I 
searcely recollect ever having seen its trunk and branches bearing any lichens or mosses, 
ere almost all trees and shrubs (not having deciduous bark) bear them thickly in 
countless profusion: and the same peculiarity, I think, obtains with another small tree 
possessing piquant bark, viz., Piper excelsum. IfI am correct in my remark, what is such 
a bare state, or lack of living drapery, to be attributed to? Can it be owing to the extreme 
pungency of their barks ? 
