1 Noy., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 365 
Like most visitors, particularly those from a distance, you enter the 
Gardens by the George-street entrance, opposite the Queensland Club (A. 12), 
and you are at once amongst an array of plants from different zones. To your 
left is the Logwood from the coast lands of Honduras, in a corresponding 
latitude to that of Princess Charlotte Bay (N. Queensland). In front waves 
a tall Cocos plumosa Palm from South Brazil; a little further on to the left a 
Date Palm from the Arabian Desert. Away to the left wave the graceful 
Bamboos of the East, and between we catch glimpses of water in which grow 
in great profusion the papyrus, upon which the achievements of the ancient 
kings of Egypt were inscribed. Wildfowl of Queensland splash and dive 
between. Pines from temperate regions and trees from Canada stand near 
the Acalyphas and Dracenas of the islets of the Pacific, and a Potnciana from 
Madagascar waves its feathery leaves amongst the branches of the Cluster Fig 
of Queensland. . 
The Logwood takes our attention first; we have better specimens in our 
Gardens than this one. Every year the civilised world uses logwood to the 
value of &2,000,000, and the best dyeing authorities are of opinion that aniline 
dyes can never drive it from the market. ‘‘ Why don’t you grow logwood ?” 
said a New Zealand man the other day, when he saw our trees, “we pay large 
sums for it in New Zealand.’’ 
From the Logwood grown in our Gardens, dye has been prepared by Mr. 
Drury, dyer, Valley ; and he considers it as good as any he has ever used, if 
not better. It grows, flowers, and seeds freely here. The seedlings come up 
in the borders, grass, everywhere. If persons having business in our humid 
scrubs would take a pocketful of this seed and scatter a pinch in rather open 
spots, there can be no doubt that this distinctly valuable tree would become 
naturalised, and be most useful for export purposes in a few years.* ‘This is 
what has taken place in Jamaica. There are several varieties of _Logwood even 
in its native forests. The cutters of Yucatan recognise four by name, though, 
from a botanist’s point of view, they are allthesame. Its use is comparatively 
ancient. In the twenty-third year of Queen Elizabeth an Act was passed to 
prohibit its use, because the colour ‘ran.’ This was repealed 100 years later. 
Messrs. Knecht and Rawson, in their manual of dyeing, call it the most 
important of all dyestuffs. 
On 1st June, 1896, the price of Logwood in Europe was:—Mexican, 
Laguna Prima, £12 per ton. 
The importations into Europe of recent years have been— 
NEED avian aie dere oldne arn TORR tin 
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” 
Besides which the United States take about 75,000 tons a year. 
The branches are brittle, and for that reason it does not make a good tree for 
open planting. Those who have “ Dampier’s Voyages’’ will find at vol. 2, part 
2, p. 56, ed. 1729, a very interesting account of the adventures of the logwood- 
getters of those days. - 
A specimen of the Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), with which we 
are all familiar, stands a little distance to the right. What we may not all 
know perhaps is that the foliage of this tree is eagerly sought by cattle, with 
whom it seems to agree very well, In India, elephants and cattle are regularly 
fed on it; and Mr. Maiden notes that when the trees in the Outer Domain, 
Sydney, are pruned, the cattle leave their accustomed pasture and devour every 
newly sprouting leaf which they can get at. An appreciable amount of India- 
rubber is to be found in this tree. It is a sister of the Assam rubber-tree, 
which we shall meet with by-and-by. 
* This is a suggestion worth noting.—Ed. Q.A.J, 
% 
