364 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1897. 
Our Botanic Gardens. 
By PHILIP MacMAHON, 
Curator. 
To enter our Gardens at Brisbane, and to see so many different plants from so 
many remote parts of the earth—remote as regards our own country, and still 
more so as regards each other—is to set one thinking. One thinks that the 
climate which can grow the products of so many lands must have much to 
recommend it as a place of Abert for man. One thinks, too, that there is a 
great future before a country with such a climate and such a soil. Then one 
is insensibly led to look with admiration upon the whole plant world so beauti- 
fully shown no less in the humblest herb than in the tall and stately palm; and 
having paid this natural tribute to the excellence of Nature, one begins to think 
that each of these must have some use, some virtue, which is known to those 
whose life business it has been to look upon them daily. You feel that you 
would like to know something more about them than the bald statement 
conveyed on a label, which; like the labels on the bottles in a chemist’g case, 
gives no hint of the possibilities within. 
Let us walk in our Gardens from month to month through the medium of ~ 
this Journal, and let us see if we cannot learn something of the inner life of 
these graceful living forms. We may find much to learn as to how they 
minister to the needs of man, what their value is as the world goes to-day, 
their special uses to our own people and to those of other nations. 
Let us talk in simple language which the artisan and labourer can under- 
stand; and if there is anything you want to know further, a postcard to the 
Editor will procure for you the information when we have our next talk. 
At the outset, to make things clear, and to avoid useless repetition, it may 
be as well to say that we shall have to lay many people under contribution for 
the materials of our conversations. The publications of our veteran Colonial 
Botanist,* whose name is known and honoured the world around wherever a 
botanist examines a plant; of Baron I. von Mueller, whose gloriously 
unselfish career has just closed; of Maiden, Moore, Bernays, Schlich, Nichol- 
son, Gamble, Roxburgh, Smith, Henslow, Schomburg, Fawcett, and many others, 
Nothing would please them better than that we should use their labours. 
That is why they laboured. Reports which are constantly coming in from all 
quarters of the earth will, too, be drawn upon; in fact, any information to 
hand will be used, if it be only interesting, new, and useful. 
But when a plant is mentioned here, you cannot go rambling about all 
day in the hope of finding it in the Gardens. With this issue is presented a 
lithographed plan which will greatly limit the area of your search. You will 
find that it is divided into parallel spaces, and that at the top and bottom are 
letters and at the sides figures. When any plant is talked of, a number and 
figure will be given if necessary, and this will fix the position. You have 
simply to find the letter at the top and follow that column down till you come 
to the cross column shown by the figure, and the thing spoken of is in that 
space, which is exactly 44 yards by 44 yards on the ground. 
Some prominent plants we may pass without speaking of, because it may 
not be the best time to speak of them, and we may have to hurry off to a 
distant part where there is something useful or interesting in bloom, but our 
little map will always keep us right. Have it mounted on a piece of linen and 
take it into the Gardens, and make yourself used to identify the local features. 
The rest comes easy. 
‘* FM, Bailey, F.LS., &. 
