12 



USES OF SOME QUEENSLAND PLANTS 



Exc&caria agalloclia, Linn. — The milky juice of this tree, which 

 has won for it the name of milky mangrove, was, as I learnt, 

 formerly used by the Port Curtis blacks as a poison for their 

 spears. 



Vigna vexillata, Benth.- — This trailing leguminous plant was 

 locally known as Gooma, and was described to me as having often 

 a large flat root similar in shape to that of a turnip, much prized by 

 the blacks as an esculent. Two other species of the genus Vigna — 

 namely, V. luteola and V, lanceolata, were, notwithstanding they 

 possessed very different blossoms, also recognised by the blacks as 

 Gooma. 



Ipomaja pes-caprai, Roth, the Burkunbullum of the Port Curtis 

 tribe, also yields to them an esculent tuber. 



Boerhaavia diffusa, Linn., has also an esculent tuberous root, 

 which, as I am informed, was once eaten by the blacks all over the 

 Xew England district of New South Wales. Its sweet potato-like 

 root was known to the Ucumbil tribe of Inverell as " tow," and to 

 the Wallari, on the Barwon, as " tar." A Port Curtis black, whom 

 I interrogated, named it "yonral, " a denomination applied, as I 

 afterwards learnt, to all " vines or creepers." 



Geodorum pictum, Lindley. — The tubers of this terrestrial 

 orchid are also eaten by the blacks about Gladstone, with whom this 

 plant goes under the name of Yeenga. In the Rockhampton 

 district, it receives the name of Uine. 



Hypoxia hygrometrica, Labill. — The small tuberous rhizome of 

 this common Amaryllid was eaten by the blacks of Keppel Island. 



Cymbidium canaliculatum, R. Br. — This common tree orchid 

 seems to me as likely to afford the most substantial aid to a man 

 lost in the bush. It is abundant, easily collected, and of such 

 striking appearance that it need not be mistaken or forgotten by 

 any traveller. The fruit and the pseudo-bulbs will support life 

 even if chewed raw. But if the latter are grated up and boiled, a 

 body is produced not to be distinguished from arrowroot. Delicate 



