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Some 60 of his specimens from the Nelson area are preserved in Hooker's herbarium 
at Kew (H.H. Allan in Bidwill 1952; 13; see also Appendix) including some from 
Lindley's herbarium, about 20 from the Tongariro massif including '133' Lepidothamnus 
laxifoliiis (Podocarpaceae, though Bidwill at first took it for a moss), '65' Dmcoplnjlhim 
recurvum (Epacridaceae), '50' Hebe tetragom (Scrophulariaceae) and, from Lindley's 
herbarium, Podocarpiis nivalis (Podocarpaceae). 
The Bunya-Bunya Pine 
Hooker's son Joseph on Ross's voyage of the Erebus and Terror was in Sydney in July 
and August 1841. Bidwill accompanied him in his rain-dogged excursions in the 
area, notes sent to Hooker on the Erebus at Sydney being preserved at Kew®. Already 
the former Colonial Secretary, Alexander McLeay of Elizabeth Bay House had 
persuaded Bidwill to collect leguminous fruits for George Bentham and Bidwill duly 
wrote to Bentham on 15 Feb 1841* apologizing for sending only material from the 
Sydney area and adding '1 myself am more a lover of gardens and flowers than a 
botanist' but he seemed happy to supply materials for those whose research was for 
the benefit of the world at large. He added that he had collected material of a plant 
possibly representing a new genus allied to Acacia, but the practical man resurfaces 
in his pointing out that it is probably not worth introducing NSW wattles to England 
because of the climatic differences but that more of both them and eucalypts could 
well be established in the Mediterranean. 
Bidwill's firm sent him to Moreton Bay, now part of Queensland, whence he wrote 
to Captain Phillip Parker King (1791-1856) at Port Stephens’® (Maiden 1908) about 
a large new waterlily he had discovered (later described as Npmphaea giganfea) as 
well as a number of potentially useful fruit trees. He also described the bunya- 
bunya pine, which had been discovered by Andrew Petrie (1798-1872) in 1838 and 
had become known in Queensland as ‘Pinus petrieana' (Herbert 1966). The seeds 
were an important food for the local Aborigines; Petrie seems to have sought the 
tree out and he possibly gave material to Bidwill for identification because of the 
latter's by now acknowledged talents as a botanist (Maiden 1906b). 
Bidwill's account of a new species of Araucaria (the bunya-bunya, later named 
A. bidwiUii) in a letter was published over the name 'H. Bidwill' (his hand is not the 
easiest to decipher) in Tasin.}. Nat. Sci. 1(1842) 404, the same letter (from 'Sidney'), dated 
5 July 1841, sent with a twig bearing male cones to London also appearing in Ann. Mag. 
Nat. Hist. 8(1842)439. Appended to both is an interesting note on Nmjtsia floribunda 
(Loranthaceae), Bidwill recording that the only specimen in the Botanic Gardens flowered 
every year but set few seeds. Sowing them gave no success but he found two seedlings 
in the garden, each with three cotyledons, perhaps the earliest observation of this 
phenomenon. Another Queensland find was his 'jasminum linoides' which his friend 
Edward Macarthur Bowman (see below) later proposed calling /. bidivillii". 
X Amarygia (? X Amaristetes) 
Bidwill was on good terms not only with McLeay but also other members of the 
leading NSW families. He corresponded regularly with King at Port Stephens, where 
he was an intimate of the family, giving storybooks to King's daughter Elizabeth 
and encouraging her interest in music as well as botanyand seems to have followed 
Pince's example by making many gladiolus crosses there as he did at Ravensmouth, 
Dr James Bowman's home in the Hunter Valley, where he became a close friend of 
