40 
Vegetable Productions 
C. nitida . This species is smaller than the last— 
growing more erect and dense, and seldom exceeding from 
4 to 6 feet in height. It exists on the sides and near the 
summits of all the mountains; but also abounds in the 
open country about the Hampshire and Surrey Hills. 
The fruit, which it bears in profusion, is elliptical, of a 
coral-red colour, sometimes approaching to amber. In 
an excursion some years ago I was enabled to relieve 
three men, who formed my party, when suffering severely 
from excessive thirst, by the berries of this species. 
All the species arc dioecious. 
Nat. Ord. Ericeje. Heath family. 
Genus, Gaultheria. 
G. hispida , or wax cluster, is “ abundant in the 
middle region of Mount Wellington, and in other elevated 
and moist situations in the Colony. The fruit is formed 
by the thickened divisions of the calyx, inclosing the 
small seed-vessel: when ripe, it is of a snowy white. 
The flavour is difficult to describe, but it is not unpleasant. 
In tarts, the taste is something like that of young goose¬ 
berries, with a slight degree of bitterness.” It usually 
grows from 3 to 6 feet high. 
In 1834, I found on Ben Lomond a small shrub, 
bearing large white fruit of a superior flavour, which I 
believe to belong to this genus : but as I had only time 
to collect two or three small specimens off the only plant 
I saw, and which I did not carefully examine, I may be 
wrong in placing it here. The shrub was only about 9 
inches high, bushy, and the fruit as large as that of 
G . hispida. 
Nat. Ord. Epacride/E. Epacris family. 
All the fruits of the berry-bearing section of this ex¬ 
tensive natural order are esculent; but the seeds are too 
large a and the pulpy covering too thin, to render them 
