KEW UNDER GEORGE III 
21 
Australian 
Plants. 
efficiency. This must, indeed, have been one of the most interest- 
ing periods in the annals of English horticulture. The labours of 
the earlier collectors were bearing full fruit, especially those of 
Masson in South Africa. The Cape heaths alone must have consti- 
tuted at that time a collection which in extent and variety has not 
since been surpassed. 
It was at this period, too, that active efforts were made to intro- 
duce plants from the southern coasts of Australia, a region peculiarly 
rich in striking and ornamental greenhouse plants. A 
commencement had been made by Menzies, who, as we 
have already seen, was attached to the surveying 
expedition under Vancouver (1791-1795), and who was the first 
to introduce Australian plants to Kew. Peter Good, however, a 
gardener at Kew, was the first collector sent to Australia from this 
establishment. He was appointed under Robert Brown, the cele- 
brated botanist, to accompany Flinders on his voyage of survey 
of the Australian coast (1801-1803). Good worked actively on 
the south-western coasts until his untimely death from fever 
in 1803. The large quantity of seeds he had collected was duly 
received at Kew, and became the main source of the fine assemblage 
of proteaceous plants which Kew subsequently possessed. Another 
collector, George Caley, went out about the same time under the 
auspices of Kew and Sir Joseph Banks. He collected chiefly in the 
rich country about Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and remained 
in New South Wales until 1811. 
After Caley had returned home, Kew was without a direct repre- 
sentative in Australia until 1817. In that year, one of the most 
famous of all plant collectors, Allan Cunningham, 
joined an expedition whose object was to explore the 
Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers. He subsequently 
visited New Zealand and Norfolk Island, and from all these places 
introduced a great number of beautiful new plants. But Cunning- 
ham had had previous experience in plant-collecting. In October, 
1814, he sailed for Brazil with another Kew gardener, James Bowie, 
with whom he spent two years in this work. Then they separated, 
Cunningham going to Australia to make further researches, whilst 
Bowie was sent to the Cape of Good Hope, where he resumed the 
work of Masson and carried it on until 1823. During five or six years 
of active work, Bowie introduced many valuable plants, especially 
Allan 
Cunningham 
