ace alld 
On Plants used by the Natives of North Queensland, 
Flinders and Mitchell Rivers, for Food, Medicine, 
&c., &c. 
By Epwarp Patmer, Parramatta, N.S.W. 
[Read before the Royal Society of N.S.W., 1 August, 1883.] 
Tue aboriginals appear to be possessed of considerable knowledge 
of indigenous plants and their uses in their several districts, as 
well as the periods of their flowering and fruiting; they also 
use many for their supposed medicinal qualities ; and, consider- 
ing that nearly half of their daily food consists of roots and fruits, 
purposes, they have names for a great numbér of plants which 
they do not use, and are familiar with the habits of nearly all 
the vegetation of their particular district. 
gathered in the present day. The following list has been 
collected personally, and the names and manner of using them 
have been obtained from the natives themselves, and from 
personal observation and experience of them in their daily life— 
principally in the Bourke and Cook district of North Queensland, 
where the natives are still in their primitive or original state. 
The list includes 106 plants for the first part ; and about fifty 
ore are known, but which are not determined yet, the season 
not being favourable for collecting them in seed or flower. 
The naming of the different species has been given by Baron 
R. von Mueller and Dr. Woolls, and Mr. F. M. Bailey, from 
Specimens forwarded. 
m 
feet high, with drooping branches; ws on the plains on the 
piers and Mitchell OP teatlaté whl get numerous, fifteen to 
wenty pair, pendulous. Young trees thorny. The roots of 
young trees roasted for food after peeling. There are two varieties 
very much alike. 
