368 SOME REPUTED MEDICINAL PLANTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES, 



Arabia, <kc, Tlie drug is in the form of leaves, more or less 

 powdered, mixed with finely broken twigs, forming altogether a 

 bi'own herb. So fine is the powder, and so irritating, that the most 

 careful examination of a specimen is attended with sneezing. The 

 plant is, as far as known, extremely local in distribution, and the 

 blacks prize it so highly that they travel enormous distances to 

 obtain it ; besides, it is a most valuable commodity for tribal 

 barter. They gather the tops and leaves during the month of 

 August, when the plant is in blossom, and hang them up to dry. 

 They are sometimes sweated beneath a layer of fine sand, dried, 

 roughly powdered, and then packed in netted bags, skins, tkc, for 

 transport. I have examined perhaps a dozen packages of Pituri 

 at different times, and they have all been made of netted work, or 

 canvas. Every bag appeared to be precisely the same both in 

 size, pattern and material. The material I believe to be obtained 

 by the aboriginals fi-om gunny-bags or wool-packs ; these are 

 unpicked, woven into circular mats about six inches in diameter, 

 and folded over the contained pituri like a jani-tart. The bag is 

 then sewn up with fibre of the same material.* Two of these 

 bags now in the Technological Museum were obtained, the one 

 from Mount Margaret Station, Wilson River, South-west Queens- 

 land, to which it had been brought by the blacks from the Herbert 

 River, the other also from the Herbert River, Lat. 23° S., Long. 

 139° ¥,., near to Pituri Cieek. In neither case can more precise 

 localities of the place from which the pituri was procured be 

 obtained, perhaps partly because the blacks do not Avish the locality 

 to be generally known, and partly because the packages have 

 passed through so many hands. 



Sometimes pituri is chewed in company, a quid being passed 

 round from one native to another, and when they have had 



*In the South Australian Museum the following pituri bags, (amongst 

 others) may be seen : — 



1. Skin of small animal, with the flesh-side outwards. 



2. Bag of blue and red stripes, probably of European yarn. 



3. A bag with red stripes, and stripes of the usual unbleached fibre. 



