May 7, 1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
869 
price to an old friend I eould not ask to pick and choose. When I 
looked them over afteiwards I saw that there was no necessity for it. 
Although such as he so’d at 5s. per dozen ordinary retail price they 
were beautiful bulbs, firm, solid, clean, and heavy. I potted the greater 
part of them at once, as they had evidently been freshened up before 
I bought them, and I fully expect them to turn out a great success. 
These imported bulbs may still be potted, but it is getting late. Use 
clean pots twice the diameter of the bulbs, crock them well, and cover the 
potsherds with a few pieces of flaky manure or rough portions of the 
compost. Loam, peat, and leaf mould in equal parts, with a good dash 
of sand and a sprinkling of crushed charcoal, or a fourth of decayed 
manure in the absence of leaf soil, will suit the plants. With regard to 
this soil question, however, I should like to add that those of your 
readers who have neither means nor room for stacks of different kinds of 
soil may achieve success with a bushel or two of prepared potting mould 
from the nearest florist. This is cheap and saves much embarrassment, 
for amateurs not infrequently put down their gardening paper in 
despair when a writer with a large well stocked establishment talks 
lightly and unconcernedly about the preparation of elaborate mixtures. 
It is easy for him, but it is difficult for them. Make the soil in the pots 
firm, but not absolutely hard when filling in, and let the tip of the bulb 
be quite 2 inches below the rim of the pot when it is placed in position to 
leave room for a subsequent top-dressing. The pots should bo plunged 
in cocoa-nut fibre refuse under a light or a few old boards, and with the 
soil moist at potting time they will not require water till growth 
commences, and the roots are working freely. If then removed from 
the fibre and placed (after a few days in partial shade to inure them to 
the light) in the greenhouse they will commence to grow rapidly. 
Water them whenever the soil approaches dryness, and directly roots 
have pushed from the base of the stem fill up the space left in the 
pots with fresh soil. The plants may bo stood out of doors during 
the summer. 
The Golden Lily is a queenly garden plant, and quite hardy. A few 
clumps established in the border by working the soil freely, adding a 
spadeful or two of |;fresh compost if poor, placing three bulbs triangu¬ 
larly about 4 inches apart, and covering them 3 to 4 inches deep, will 
make a splendid display. Bold clumps with a background of shrubs 
are magnificent. A few spadefuls of peat are wonderfully acceptable 
to the plant, and though peat can be dispensed with, those who are in a 
position topi’ovideit may look for superior results, whether their gardens 
be in town or country. As a town gardener I can vouch for the easy 
management and majestic beauty of the Golden Lily even within the 
sound of Big Ben, and I urge its claims earnestly upon all as a sterling 
garden flower of commanding beauty and rich fragrance.—W. P. W. 
THE ECONOMIC PLANTS OF AUSTEALTA. 
The re-discovery of Australia by Captain Cook presented to 
Europeans botanical novelties of an astonishing kind, plants of singular 
structure and of the highest scientific interest, together with floral 
treasures of great beauty. Thus were two classes of people served with 
a great feast—the scientific botanist and the horticulturist. Seeds of our 
native plants were forwarded to Europe the very first year of settlement, 
and the frequency with which expensive plates of Australian plants are 
to be found in botanical literature at the beginning of this century 
attests the interest which was taken in them. Collectors of different 
nationalities found their way to this continent and sailed away with new 
.species, to be described in the proceedings of every botanical society in 
Europe ; active commerce in seeds and plants followed, Avhich has been 
more or less maintained up to the present day, and although this is, in 
a measure, economic botany—one of the sordid pounds, shillings, and 
pence aspects of our indigenous vegetation, it is not the sense in which 
the phrase is commonly understood, which is the utilisation of plant pro¬ 
ducts—a wide subject, and one which can only be imperfectly dealt with 
in the brief space at my disposal. 
There can be no doubt that Governor Phillip and his officers were 
•disappointed at the prospect of useful plants which the first district 
settled in Australia presented. Partly because Sir Joseph Banks perhaps 
painted the usefulness of the vegetation a little too much coideur de 
rose, and partly on account of the favourable expectations excited in 
sanguine minds at the prospect of unexplored country, the early settlers 
felt disappointed when they did not find abundance of edible fruit 
awaiting the pulling, and soft timber which could be fashioned into 
their requirements with a minimum of labour. They were concerned 
with two things—food and shelter, and great was the outcry when the 
timber proved to be hard, and the vegetable food peculiar to the country 
little tempting to Europeans. The economic properties of Australian 
plants are frequently not evident at first sight, and after the lapse of 
100 years we are bound to confess that our knowledge of the subject 
has not passed the elementary stage, partly on account of the vastness 
of the continent, and partly because the great mass of the vegetation is 
■endemic, and we are, therefore, deprived of the assistance obtainable by 
analogy. 
Nowadays it is not sufficient to throw a new timber on the market 
without an explicit statement of its properties; a bark will not be 
accepted as a drug because it has an unjrleasant taste, and so on. We must 
persevere in the investigation of the properties of our plants ; this work 
is the handmaid to commerce, and in these investigations we can build 
upon the grand foundation of an elaborated flora, a privilege which no 
equally large portion of the earth’s surface can boast. 
The articles obtained from our native vegetation, which at one time 
and another have been exported to other countries, do not make a very 
long list. Our timbers are far and away the most useful products of 
our native plants, but they have not been sent bej'^ond the seas to any 
great extent. They include some of the hard woods, such as Jarrah and 
the Ironbarks, noted for their durability and strength ; the Sandalwood 
of Western Australia, taken to China and the Straights Settlements ; 
Red Cedar ; Casuarina timber, or “ Botany Bay Oak,” for turnery; 
together with occasional parcels of our ornamental woods ; also a few 
drugs, such as Alstonia (Fever Bark), Atherosperma (Victorian Sassa¬ 
fras), Duboisia myoporoides, together with Grass Tree gum, up to the 
discovery of a method of manufacturing picric acid from coal tar. We 
have also sent Eucalyptus oil during the last quarter of a eentury ; the 
gum (Kino) of our Eucalyptus as a substitute for the kino of medicine ; 
Wattle gum and bark, also a treacly extract of the latter, have frequently 
been sent. 
We will briefly consider the principal economic plants, taking them 
in groups according to their uses. 
Local conditions which obtain in Australia—the severity of the 
droughts, and the competition ot rabbits and marsupials, cause sheep 
and cattle to fall back upon innumerable plants which, by courtesy, are 
therefore termed “forage plants.” The indigenous Grasses are very 
numerous, and some of them are valuable for pasture ; perhaps the 
ubiquitous Kangaroo Grass (Anthistiria ciliata, Ai»».) is the best known 
and most valuable species, Australia being largely pastoral, the matter 
of Grasses is very important, and some have asserted that the high 
quality of Australian wool is mainly attributable to indigenous 
vegetation of this kind. This is, perhaps, true, but it scarcely admits 
of proof, as this excellence is probably largely accounted for by a variety 
of other contributing circumstances, chief of which may be reckoned 
climatic conditions, and the great attention which has been given to 
scientific sheep breeding. Following the Grasses, the vegetation known 
as Salt Bushes comes second, and without these plants a large portion of 
the dry country could not support the life of domestic animals. These 
plants, which are largely endemic, and belong to the natural order 
ChenopodiaceiB, are bushes varying in height from a few inches to 
several feet ; their foliage is saline, and very palatable to sheep and 
cattle. Salt Bush country is a novelty to Europeans, and the early 
explorers imagined it to be worthless until the sheep themselves 
ascertained its value. In time of drought vegetable matter of all kinds 
is consumed, even trees— e.ff., Mulga and other Acacias, Belar (Casuarina), 
and spotted tree Flindersia, being either pollarded or felled for hungry 
animals. 
The vegetable food products suitable for man yielded by Australian 
vegetation are not remarkable. In the more arid parts of the continent 
deMhs are of course of more frequent occurrence on account of want of 
water than of food ; in fact, they are comparatively rare from the latter 
cause. Nevertheless there are few people who could support life on 
what they could obtain from our native plants. With the blacks the 
case IS different, inasmuch as all their faculties were sharpened for the 
one object - the pursuit of the scanty food supply—while white men lost 
in the bush, without their own edibles, as a rule do not look to the 
native plants to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and, if they do, seldom 
find it. Even in very arid districts water may be obtained from the 
roots of some trees (the dwarf Eucalypts, known as Mailees, being 
usually chosen), by the simple expedient of cutting the roots into lengths 
and sucking them or draining the water into a receptacle. In other 
warm parts of the world the method of obtaining water from the trunks 
of climbers is practised, but I believe Australia is the only country in 
which it is taken from the roots. 
The edible fruits are usually small or insipid. One of the best is 
the Quandong (Fusanus acuminatus), which envelopes a large seed or 
nut, itself good eating. Then we have such plants as the Native Pome¬ 
granates (Capparis), the Wild Melon (Cucumis), and innumerable fruits 
giving a minimum of succulent matter— e.ff., Ground Berries (Astro- 
loma, &c.). Doubtless some of these fruits and other food products are 
capable of improvement with cultivation, but as the cultivation of 
plants was unknown to the blacks, and white men have brought their 
own foods with them, the extent of possible improvement is an un- 
known quantity. We have a splendid edible nut with a hard shell 
known as the Queensland Nut (Macadamia teruifolia), while a large 
Conifer (Araucaria Bidwilli), the Bunya-Bunja produces in certain 
seasons abundance of nuts about the size of Walnuts, which are 
eagerly sought after by the blacks, who have instituted a kind of 
hereditary property in various trees on that account—perhaps the only 
instance of this kind among the natives. The Macrozamias, or Nut 
Palms, and the Bean Tree, or Moreton Bay Chestnut (Castanospermum 
australe) yield abundance of large starchy seeds, which, however, 
require to be soaked in water and roasted to free them from certain 
deleterious properties with which they are accompanied. ^ They form 
good sustenance to hungry Europeans, but are poisonous if eaten raw. 
The aboriginals also used to eat the seeds of certain Wattles (Acacia), 
and in fact they utilise any vegetable product which promised even a 
minimum of nutriment. Roots were in much demand, amongst which 
may be mentioned those of many kinds of Orchids, the succulent roots 
of even some largish trees—c.y., Kurrajong (Sterculia), while the roots 
(corma) of plants belonging to the Arum tribe (Aroidem) were largely 
used for food, their poisonous properties being removed by treatment 
similar to that described in the case of Macrozamia. 
Australia has not, up to the present, contributed any large number 
of articles to the armament of the physician. At the pme time, very 
few articles from our indigenous vegetation have been subjected to critical 
