279 
On the Coniferce of Tasmania. 
the individuals of each species being either very few in number, 
or else remarkably local, and consequently confined within narrow 
areas; and further, to the want of an intelligent class of natives, 
such as inhabit New Zealand, who may direct the man of science, 
or the settler, to what tradition and experience have taught the 
aboriginal inhabitant to value in his savage state. Many of the 
species, also, are limited to the more remote and almost inac¬ 
cessible parts of the island ; only bearing flowers after attaining 
a considerable size; and they are not easily procured in a state 
fit for examination. Such is eminently the case with the Huon 
Pine: it is confined to the western and southern parts of the 
colony, growing in dense forests, or amongst mountains covered 
with a vegetation the most difficult to penetrate. It has been 
seen by few Europeans, save the wood-cutter or the convict; 
itself being the only inducement for a botanist to visit that tem¬ 
pestuous and rainy quarter of Tasmania. Mr. Gunn, to whom 
the botany of this part of the globe is so greatly indebted, and 
to whose zeal and perseverance we owe the discovery of nearly 
one half of its Coniferce, never found the Huon Pine in its native 
state ;* and of the three men of science who have done so. Sir 
J. Franklin, Mr. Backhouse, and Mr. A. Cunningham, the latter 
alone has been able to procure fructification, and that but 
imperfect. 
Next to the Huon Pine, the species called the Celery-topped 
or Adventure-Bay Pine, is the best known to the colonists, as 
well as the most widely diffused; and until these very few years, 
none other was described by botanists. It is the Podocarpus 
aspleniifolia of its discoverer, Labillardicre, the distinguished 
naturalist and historiographer of D’Entrecasteaux’s voyage. 
The Oyster-Bay Pine, a species of the widely distributed 
Australian genus, C allitris, is the only other coniferous plant 
commonly known amongst the colonists of Tasmania. It is true 
that a large district in the interior is called the .Pine-marshes; 
and a river given off from it bears the same name; but, unless 
a species of Athrotaxis which I procured in its bed, at a 
* A large collection of specimens in fructification has been sent to Dr. Hooker by Mr. Gunn 
since the publication of this paper.— Ed. Tasm. Journ. 
