Oct., 1920 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
10 
that time, trifling matters. To have reached the other side by 
heading the swamp I should have had to traverse many miles, and. 
in unexplored country it is not always possible to locate a particular 
spot. I cut my way through the entangled mass of vegetation, and. 
the reward more than paid me for my exertion. 
The climber, which was about 9 feet high, with a similar 
diameter, had selected for its support a tree of Clerodendron 
tomentosum (R.Br.), which it had entirely enveloped with its long, 
flexible stems, on which were expanded thousands of beautiful, 
bright, rosy-purple flowers, each about 3 inches long — a simply 
lovely sight in the bright sunlight. I surveyed the plant from every 
point of view, because T knew that flie species had never before 
been discovered, and the more I inspected it the more I admired it. 
With the aid of the aborigines T dug up the climber, removed the 
superfluous growths, carried it to camp and planted it in an 
extemporised wooden box. in which it was eventually carried to 
Brisbane and planted in the Botanic Gardens. In 1878 the climber 
flowered profusely, and I gave the late Mr. F. M. Bailey specimens 
of it; Mr. W. Hill sent my original specimens to Melbourne, and 
Mueller named the plant after him.” 
Mr. Turner's remarks as to having collected about 
three thousand specimens were most interesting to me. and 
as none of these specimens is now represented in the Govern- 
ment Herbarium at the Ilrisl^ane Botanic Gardens, I asked 
Mr. Turner if he knew w.liat had been done with them. In 
reply he supplied the Hollowing information: — 
*‘I ,‘^as pleased to learn from your better that you were 
interested in the plant specimens I collected at Hervey Bay and 
Fraser, island, in 1876, for the Government of Queensland. Mr. 
Walter Hill, Colonial Botanist, then my superior officH, forwarded 
sets of the specimens I collected to various herbaria, principally in 
Europe and America, where botanists were keenly interested in 
Australian vegetation owning to Bentbam's “ Flora Australiansis,” 
then going through the Press. In 1878, when Tccoina Hillii flowered 
in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, I forwarded to Baron Mueller, in 
Melbourne, fresh specimens. He, when acknowledging the receipt 
of the specimens, told me that he had already named the plant 
after Mr. Hill, as he thought Mr. Hill had collected it. In Mueller’s 
frag}nejita* you will notice that I am -given credit for discovering' 
Tecoma Hillii — ‘'During my five years’ service in the Govern- 
ment of Queensland I collected in different parts of the State up- 
wards of 10,000 specimens, most of which were distributed by Mr. 
Hill in other countries. What I regret most is that I kept no copies 
of my reports to Mr. Hill on the indigenous flora I collected. I wrote 
to M^., J. F. Bailey, when he was Director of the Brisbane Botanic 
Gardens, for copies of the reports, but be informed me that ‘all the 
records had 'been do-st in the T89t'floodsT’'' 
“.The following' brief . extracts are from my i instructions to 
proceed t,o Hervey Bay and Fraser Island in 1876. ‘ Specimens in 
flower and fruit of the tree known to the blacks as the ‘ Bee Bing.’f 
* Vol. XI., p. 136. The origin<al description appeared in vol. X.. p. loi. 
— C.T.W. 
r The “ I’ee Iting” is Syncarpia Ifillii. It was m those dense jungles- 
bordertng Hervey Pay that poor Ritlwill lost his life several .years previoui- 
to my visit. — F.T. 
