Mabberley, Plant introduction and hybridisation in colonial NSW 
555 
death, most of the plants in the Tinana garden were supposed to liave been transferred 
to Sydney and Moore went to Tinana in the spring of 1853 to look at the garden, but 
he concluded that it was not worth 'the Expense of purchasing and preserving the 
collection of plants of the deceased gentleman' (Gilbert 1986; 87). The Garden which 
had a mango, perhaps the first grown in Australia (McKinnon 1940), no longer exists, 
but Maryborough City Council is establishing a Bidwill Arboretum in the centre of 
Maryborough to include some of the plants named after him. 
Bidwill's achievements 
Besides his exploration and administrative work in New Zealand and Australia, 
Bidwill was at the centre of Colonial botany and horticulture, being Macarthur's key 
expert on the introduction of new plants from abroad and their hybridizing and 
selection for Australian conditions, as well as the discovery and export of new New 
Zealand, Tahitian and Australian plants and sometimes even their hybridizing with 
exotics. Despite his very short tenure of the Directorship of the Gardens, Bidwill 
seems to have been desperately concerned about their welfare as a scientific rather 
than merely recreational institution. Not only did he discover many new plants in 
both Australia and New Zealand as well as Tahiti, the names of some of them 
commemorating him (see Appendix), but he also introduced many of them live to 
Europe and in exchange introduced thence and from Tahiti economic plants including 
papayas and perhaps the mango as well as many ornamentals including stephanotis 
to the young Colony; he was at the forefront of hybridizing ornamentals, most 
notably perhaps X Amarygia cvs which are now grown throughout the world. 
Living an apparently financially rather precarious existence as a trader and agent, 
dealing in living plants as well as other goods, he had enjoyed the patronage of his 
horticultural contacts, notably Macarthur, which had led him to believe he was more 
or less destined for the Sydney post. He began the job energetically but the precipitate 
appointment made in ignorance by a new Governor, perhaps under pressure from 
the domineering Macarthur, after all the careful financial fixing had been arranged, 
was his undoing; his bitterness is understandable, but his untimely death in the 
harsh conditions of the early Maryborough settlement seems an unjust end for such 
a promising scientist. 
Bidwill's publications were few, but the importance of his Rambles in Nezv Zealand 
should not be underestimated. Moreover he was generous with information and 
much of it contained in his letters was published by others, though his discoveries 
in New Zealand were perhaps played down. His herbarium specimens are preserved 
at Kew and also Cambridge (New Zealand material), Berlin, Leiden, Melbourne and 
Missouri (all Australian pl-mts). Besides in plant names, he is commemorated in the 
names of a suburb in Maryborough (sometimes incorrectly called Bidwell) and another 
in Sydney. The latter was laid out in the early 1970s; the names of the streets in the 
area developed by the Housing Commission north of Manifold Road, east of 
Popondetta Road and west of Daniels Road act as memorials of the man, his 
associates, discoveries and other achievements: Bidwill Square, Bidwill Reserve, Came 
Way, Exeter Place, Tinana Place, Tongariro Terrace, Wide Bay Circuit, Bunya Road, 
Pine Crescent, Petrie Close, Ludwig Square, Macarthur Way, Camden Way, King 
Square, Fitzroy Way, Waterlily Terrace, Acacia Terrace, Cupania Crescent, Capparis 
Crescent, Jasmine Crescent, Loranthus Crescent, Myrtus Crescent, Amaryllis Way, 
Molong Way, though perhaps Bidwill would have been less than happy with Kidd 
Close, Lindley Square and Dieffenbach Terrace! The names seem to have been taken 
from the biographical sketch by Maiden (1908), which also explains the use of 
