28 Indigenous Vegetable Productions. 



deserve notice, as possessing more or less sudorific and diuretic 

 properties, in which respect some of them may be compared to 

 the Bucco. 



More attention should be directed to the circumstance, that 

 all the myrtaceous plants, which throughout Australia consti- 

 tute the main part of the timber, and generally also of the 

 scrub vegetation, yield in a greater or smaller degree an 

 essential oil. Unlimited quantities of Eucalyptus and Mela- 

 leuca leaves might be turned to account by the simple process, 

 by which in India from the leaves of Melaleuca Leucoden- 

 dron, the Cajuput oil is obtained. The oil of the leaves of the 

 redgum tree is similar in flavour to the Cajuput oil, and may 

 be safely used instead of the latter in spasmodic and rheumatic 

 affections. The Eucalyptus leaves have, on account of their 

 abundance of volatile oil, been used already for the manu- 

 facture of gas in lighting the township of Kyneton. 



It is also worthy of record that a bark of equal properties 

 with that of Mezereon, may be obtained, as the natural system 

 prognosticated, from our Pimelese. Nothing, for instance, can 

 surpass the mezereon-like acridity of Pimelea stricta. The 

 gum resin of Eucalyptus resinifera and other species, has, since 

 the early days of the Australian settlement, been occasionally 

 exported as New Holland Kino ; and, being a powerful astrin- 

 gent, it is entitled to our attention, particularly when we 

 remember in what vast quantities it is obtainable in every part 

 of Australia. In domestic medicine it has been often employed 

 against diarrhoea. It is not improbable that the Gipps Land 

 Smilax latifolia may serve the purpose of sarsaparilla, this 

 being the only Victorian plant allied to the genuine American 

 drug. The pungent juice which pervades all parts of the 

 so-called pepper tree, Drimys aromatica (Tasmania aromatica 

 H. Br.), affords another instance how felicitously the natural 

 system of phytology can be applied for ascertaining properties 

 of allied species, although they may belong to very distant 

 countries. This tree supplies us here with the Winteran bark 

 of Magellan Straits. 



The saccharine secretion known as Australian manna is 

 occasionally, during the hottest months of the year obtainable in 

 considerable quantities from the leaves and tender twigs chiefly 

 of the Eucalyptus viminalis, but containing no mannite, it 

 cannot be regarded as a substitute for Ornus manna. The 

 exudation, which incrusts now and then the bark of Myoporum 

 platycarpum, a small desert tree, resembles raw sugar. 



The wattle bark, chiefly from Acacia mollissima and pycnan- 



