and some of its enormous roots had spread under the heavy stone pavement, lifting it up in an arch, like a bridge.

When the cones ripened, the large winged seeds fell out in great numbers; they require to be planted immediately, if at all, as the oil in them quickly dries out, and with it the vegetative properties are lost.

Close under the towering pines grew a common English peartree; a crooked, wide-spreading, leafy, farm-house-garden sort of pear-tree, that won my especial love, from the good old-fashioned pictures of gable-ended houses and neat garden-orchards it brought into my mind, and the glory and delight of its spring-time blossoms was an earnest and most child-like joy to me. Surely never was pear-tree so watched and gazed on, both morning, evening, and moonlight!-for Sydney moonlights are like tropical ones, so clear, so silver-bright, that I could see to read small print as well as by day-and the old pear-tree shone out in them like a beautiful vision of home, telling store of pleasant stories in each fluttering leaf that fell from its thousands of flowers-telling of bloomy fragrant gardens, with velvet turf paths, and shady arbours, and singing birds, and little running brooks, one of whose silver threads near our thirsty home would have been a priceless treasure-oh! it was an exhaustless remembrancer of pleasant by-gones was that old pear-tree!

Its rival in my home-loving regards was a little root of the double daisy, which, as a great treasure, my husband brought me one day from a gardener's. It lived, as very few daisies do at home, I can tell them, in a pot by itself, and was carried into the shade, and watered daily, and tended with as much solicitude as any rara avis of the choicest conservatory. It bore two nice pinky-white daisies, just like real English ones; and then, during an illness I had, in which I could not attend to it, it withered away, and my first glance into the garden showed me the scorched remains of my poor favourite.

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Many very pretty native flowers and shrubs adorned our bush," or rather forest, and the graceful native indigo crept up many bushes and fences, sometimes totally hiding them with its elegant draperies. Another handsome climber of the same family (Kennedia) has rich crimson flowers, very long in the part called the keel, with bright yellow stamens protruding from its

point. This species climbs to a height of twenty or thirty feet, and the dark leaves and drooping flowers hang down in elegant pendulous wreaths. But the most beautiful climbing plant I have yet seen in Australia, I know not the name of, nor can I find any botanical description to suit it, except that of Bignonia Australis, which it possibly is. The leaves resemble those of the jessamine in form, but are much larger, and of a rich glossy green; the flowers fox-glove shaped, in long axillary sprays, their colour being a delicate cream-colour, beautifully variegated within by bright purple markings. I only found one plant of it, in a (comparatively) cool moist thicket in our Homebush wood.

Great quantities of a tall, handsome, herbaceous plant, commonly called the "mock-cotton tree," grew near us, and by the roadsides around Sydney, it having at one time been introduced as a probably profitable speculation, but the cotton was not found to be a marketable article. The clusters of white flowers are extremely beautiful, having very much the structure of the Hoya carnosa, and are full of clear honey. I used to put them to a very ignoble use, namely, as fly-cages, to attract the troublesome swarms from our picture-frames, which the honey-laden blossoms effected to a great extent.

The seed-pods are large, and full of most beautiful soft filaments, like white floss silk, which before they are ruffled by the wind have a bright and silvery gloss, that might well tempt a trial of so fair a material in manufactures. It looks as if it might be spun into an exquisite stuff between cambric and satin ; and I think still, that some clever genius of the spinning-jennies might weave us a most dainty and gossamer fabric of its fine and even threads, which are the wings of the seeds, and being so light and long, waft them an immense distance, often to the annoyance of the agriculturist, who would by no means partake in my idle admiration of his insidious foe. I suppose it is a species of Asclepias.

Small shrubs with yellow and orange papilionaceous blossoms abounded everywhere, some clinging to the ground like mosses, and others, with every variety of soft and hard, smooth and prickly leaves that can be imagined, growing into tall shrubs, all very pretty, but with so strong a family likeness that I grew fastidious among them, and rarely gathered more than two or

three. A small scentless violet and a bright little yellow sorrel (which is an excellent salad-herb) made some few patches of the dry earth gay with their blue and golden blossoms, and the ground convolvulus and southern harebell seldom failed to greet me in our rambles. Various kinds of epacris also abounded, with delicate wax-like pink and white flowers.

The trees called by the Colonists "he-oak” and “she-oak” (Casuarina stricta and C. torulosa) form a remarkable feature in Australian scenery. They are usually of rather handsome forms, with dark, rough, permanent bark, and brownish-olive foliage, resembling in structure the "horse-tails" of English brooks, consisting of long tufts of jointed grassy branchlets, hanging down like coarse hair, or a horse's tail. The he-oak has much shorter tresses than the she-oak, which may perhaps have given rise to the absurd Colonial distinction of the species (as they belong to the order Monacia). The blossoms in spring appear like a small crimson fringe on portions of the branches, and the succeeding cones are the size of a pigeon's egg, very roughly tubercled. Perhaps none of all the novel trees in this Colony have so completely strange and un-English an aspect as these; and in a moderate breeze the tones uttered amongst their thousands of waving, whispering strings are far from unmusical, and reminded me of the lower, wailing notes of an Æolian harp. However luxuriant may be the foliage of one of these singular trees, the skeleton form of the branches is never hidden, but every twig shows itself, making a drawing of one rather a puzzling affair to so humble a limner as myself.

She-oak is especially liked as fuel. It is said that this name has been borrowed from the sheac, or cheoak, of America, in consequence of some resemblance in the wood.

The zamia, now so well known in English stoves, I have often observed near Sydney, with its handsome coronet of palm-like leaves gracefully spreading round the central cone. Near the road to Cook's River they grow very numerously.

The name, and some resemblance in form between the seedvessel and the fruit, form all the likeness which the famed "wooden pear-tree" of Australia bears to its more useful namesake at home. One or two large specimens of the wooden fruit which I saw were the size of a good Jargonelle pear. When

ripe, they split open from end to end, showing a solid wooden structure, with the thin winged seeds scaling off the inner sides. Several other shrubs bear similar seed-vessels of a smaller size.

The "native cherry" (Exocarpus cupressiformis) has no better claim to its borrowed title than the pear-tree, being in foliage more like a cypress, but of a brighter and yellower green than the generality of trees in this ever-brown region. Its form is usually handsome, although it seldom attains a large size, and the wood is remarkably close, hard, and finely grained, well adapted for turning or carving. The fruit, so celebrated among Antipodean contrarieties for having the "stone outside," is like a small yew-berry, but still less pleasant in flavour, with a hard seed growing from its end, fancifully termed the stone. Of all countries or climates, I think that of Australia must be the most barren of useful natural products of the vegetable kingdom; for this miserable "cherry" is the best specimen of its indigenous fruits, if not the only one; nor am I aware of any one edible grain or root fit for human food. Some florid descriptive writers have, I know, luxuriated in depicting imaginary gardens of "parsley and wild carrots," amidst which the cattle are said to revel in abundance; but whilst in the Colony I never heard of such things. Perhaps the wretched root which, as I have before mentioned, the aborigines dig for when all other sustenance fails them, may be the "carrot" in question; but it is too hot, stringy, bitter, and small to be of the slightest use to Europeans.

Some of the insect-architects here are most extraordinary creatures; but I grieve to say I know comparatively little about them, my chief acquaintance being with their deserted houses, of which I have several kinds. Some of these are formed of straight twigs, the sixth or eighth part of an inch thick, and from two to four inches long, placed side by side in a circular form, and very strongly webbed together within, so that it is impossible to tear them asunder without breaking the twigs, the ends of which usually project beyond the closed portion of the cell, which is suspended by a strong web woven over the spray of a tree or shrub, so as to let it swing with the wind. I have sometimes seen a large white caterpillar inside an unfinished cell, and on one or two occasions have observed a bush or tree so full