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The natives used also to compound liquors—perhaps after a slight fermentation to some extent 
intoxicating—from various flowers, from honey, from gums, and from a kind of manna. The liquor was 
usually prepared in tin large wooden bowls ( tarnucks ) which were to be seen at every encampment. In 
the flowers of a dwarf species of Banksia (B. orncita) there is a good deal of honey, and this was got out of 
the flowers by immersing them in water. The water thus sweetened was greedily swallowed by the 
natives. The drink was named beat by the natives of the west of Victoria, and was much esteemed.— 
( Aborigines of Victoria, R. Brough Smyth, i, 210). 
Sir Thomas Mitchell ( Three Expeditions, ii, 288), speaking of an ‘•'Iron- 
bark,” near Port Phillip (Melbourne), says :— 
The flowers are gathered, and by steeping them all night in water the natives made a sweet 
beverage called “bool.” (Evidently the same name as that in the preceding paragraph). 
Other melliferous plants are and were used for the same purpose. 
Proteaceous plants are, as a rule, rich in honey. 
. The name “ Honeysuckle ” was applied to this genus by the early settlers 
from the fact that the flowers, when in full bloom, contain, in a greater or lesser 
quantity, a sweet, honey-like liquid, which is secreted in considerable quantities, 
especially after a dewy night, and is eagerly sucked out by the aborigines. 
It is so abundant in B. ericifolia and B. collina that when in flower the ground underneath large 
cultivated plants is in a complete state of puddle ; bees and wasps become intoxicated, and many lose their 
lives in it.—(Smith : Dictionary of Useful Plants.) 
This may possibly be true of a particular Banksia, cultivated under 
exceptional conditions. I have, however, never heard of such a case. It certainly 
does not apply, except in a very modified degree, to the case of any Banksia I have 
noticed, and since I observed the above statement I have taken the trouble to look 
at hundreds of individuals of various species with the view to testing its accuracy. 
I also many years ago requested Mr. Baeuerlen (a collector for the Technological 
Museum) to make similar observations, and he writes :— 
I have never heard from anyone having observed the liquid exuding so abundantly as mentioned 
by Smith. I have found the flowers pretty rich in the honey-like liquid, and when travelling over dry, 
waterless areas-, I have sometimes sucked the liquid from the flowers to quench my thirst, but always 
endeavour not to do so, as it invariably gives me a headache, and a feeling of nausea afterwards. 
Drummond ( Hooker's Journal of Botany, ii) states that the natives of the 
Swan River district lived for five or six weeks principally upon the honey which 
they suck from the flowers of a species of Banksia (near grandis). 
Aboriginal Name. —“Woreck”of the aborigines of the Lake Hindmarsli 
Station (Victoria), quoted by Brough Smyth. Mr. J. G. Saxton gives “ War rock ” 
as the aboriginal name in Victoria for this tree, evidently the same as the preceding, 
and I have adopted it, as a supplementary name to “Honeysuckle,” to designate 
this particular species. 
Synonyms. —This species lias many synonyms, mainly because of the varia¬ 
bility in shape of its leaves. B. micros tacky a, Cav. Anal. Hist. Nat. i, 224, Ic. vi, 28, 
t. 541 (specimens with serrate leaves) ; 13. marginata, Lodd. Bot. Cab., t., Gl, and 
B. oblongifolia, Lodd. Bot. Cab., t. 241, not of others (both with serrate leaves); B. 
