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The Garden Magazine, May, 1923 
Wimbledon, near London, in 1791, and received a liberal educa¬ 
tion, his father intending him for the law; but he preferred gar¬ 
dening and obtained employment at Kew under the elder Aiton. 
In 1814, Allan Cunningham was sent to Brazil where he collected 
for two years and as Sir Joseph Banks wrote, “did credit to the 
expedition and honor to the Royal Garden.” He was next ap¬ 
pointed to New South Wales and landed at Port Jackson on 
December 21, 1816. From then until 1831 he was assiduously 
employed in exploring and plant collecting, both round the coast 
on vessels and into the far interior. He suffered dangers and 
hardships of every kind and amassed rich collections. 
In 1826, Cunningham visited New Zealand where he remained 
nearly half a year and endeared himself greatly to the Maories. 
In 1832 the post of Colonial Botanist was offered to him, but he 
declined it in favor of his younger brother, Richard. Two 
years afterward this brother was murdered by blacks, and the 
appointment being again offered to Allan it was accepted. He 
reached Sydney on the 12th of February, 1837. The post not 
being agreeable to him he resigned a few months later, and re¬ 
sumed his plant exploration work. But the hardships he had 
suffered had done their work. He died of tuberculosis on June 
27, 1839, “a martyr to 
geographical exploration 
and botanical science in the 
48th year of his age.” His 
remains have found a 
worthy resting place in the 
Botanical Garden, Sydney, 
among the plants he had 
loved too well. There is no 
more worthy and honored 
name among the band of 
plant collectors than that 
of Allan Cunningham. 
Many plants have been 
named for him, but to my 
mind there is none more 
fitting than that lusty, no¬ 
ble evergreen, the truly 
magnificent Araucaria 
Cunninghamii —the Hoop 
Pine—which he discovered 
in 1827 near Brisbane to¬ 
gether with Grevillea ro- 
busta. His writings are few 
and the present generation, 
even in Australia, know 
little of the debt we owe 
to this noble-hearted man. 
For the “purpose of dis¬ 
charging a religious duty” 
James Backhouse of the 
nursery firm of that name 
at York, England, landed 
in Australia in 1832 and 
spent six years there. He 
visited Tasmania, New 
South Wales, South Aus¬ 
tralia, and Swan River and 
collected wherever he went. 
He is commemorated by 
the Myrtaceous genus 
Backhousia of which the 
best known species is B. 
myrtifolia of New South 
Wales. 
This account of collec¬ 
tors may conclude with 
Ronald Campbell Gunn 
who did so much to make 
known the flora of Tas¬ 
mania. Born at Capetown in 1808, he went to Tasmania in 1830 
and died there in 1881. Gunn collected assiduously during his 
life and made known to science many new plants. He is com¬ 
memorated by a number of plants of which 1 may instance Eu¬ 
calyptus Gunnii, one of the hardiest of the genus, and Notho- 
fagus Gunnii, the only deciduous tree in Tasmania. 
T HE first Colonial Botanist was Charles Fraser who had 
been a soldier in a regiment commanded by Governor Mac¬ 
quarie. Fraser was appointed in 1828 and proved an indefati¬ 
gable explorer and collector. He visited Swan River, Moreton 
Bay, and Tasmania and enriched our gardens with a goodly 
number of plants. Among them I may mention Platycerium 
grande discovered by Allan Cunningham in 1820 and introduced 
to the Glasgow Botanic Garden by Fraser in 1829. His report 
on the Swan River had much to do with the founding of the 
colony there and it was he who established the Botanic Garden 
at Sydney. When on an expedition to collect plants especially 
for this garden he was stricken with a fatal illness in 1831. He 
had gone with carts to Bathurst for living plants and*on the 
return journey was taken ill some 20 miles from Parramatta 
which he reached in a very 
debilitated state and died 
there two days later. 
In 1829, James Drum¬ 
mond went out from Eng¬ 
land to Perth as Curator 
of the Botanic Garden and 
remained in West Austra¬ 
lia until his death in 1863. 
He sent home seeds of a 
great variety of plants and 
probably did more than 
any other man to make 
known the flora of the 
country. He was the elder 
brother of Thomas Drum¬ 
mond' who collected so 
much in Texas and for 
whom the well-known 
Phlox Drummondii is 
named. James was born 
about 1784 and had an 
excellent training for the 
work he took up, having 
been Curator of the Bo¬ 
tanic Gardens, Cork, from 
1809. His specimens and 
seeds were sent to Robert 
Brown, SirWilliam Hooker, 
and Doctor Lindley, and 
many plants were received 
in Kew and other gardens. 
Among the plants intro¬ 
duced by James Drum¬ 
mond are Acacia Drum¬ 
mondii, Leschenaultia 
grandiflora, L. laricina, L, 
biloba, Pimelea spedabilis, 
Boronia heterophylla, and 
Chorifema varium. The 
brothers Drummond are 
commenorated by the 
monotypic and endemic 
Australian plant, Drum- 
mondita ericoides. 
A wise administration 
caused Botanic gardens 
to be founded in the 
capital city of each Aus¬ 
tralian state. These from 
BANGALOW PALMS IN THE “BRUSH” 
Palms are few in the lower half of Australia but in the rain-forests the Bangalow (Arch- 
ontophoenix Cunninghamiana) lifts its graceful crown sometimes half a hundred feet 
