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Gilbert stated he had seen specimens standing nine feet high. Brown brought a carpet snake, and a brown snake with yellow belly. The flies become very numerous, but the mosquitoes are very rare. On a botanical excursion I found a new Loranthus, with flat linear leaves, on Casuarina, a new species of Scaevola, Buttneria, and three species of Solanum. Mr.
Phillips found a flesh-coloured drupaceous oblong fruit, about half an inch long, with a very glutinous pericarp, containing a slightly compressed rough stone: in taste it resembled the fruit of Loranthus, and the birds, particularly the coekatoos, appeared very fond of it. We all ate a great quantity of them, without the slightest injury. It grew on a small tree, and had a persistent calyx.
Among the new and interesting scrubs and trees which we met with at almost every step, I shall only mention a small Grevillea, from one to two feet in height, with pubescent pinnatifid leaves, and a simple or compound thyrsus of scarlet flowers; Cochlospermum gossypium, the native cotton tree of Port Essington, whose bright showy yellow blossoms and large capsules full of silky cotton, attracted our attention; its leaves are deciduous, and the trees were entirely leafless; a fine species of Calytrix on the rocks, and two of Loranthus on the drooping tea tree, the drooping foliage of which one of them imitated, whilst the other belonged to the group I mentioned as found at the Suttor, with its flowers inserted on a leafy bract.
During my absence, my companions found a quantity of implements and ornaments of the natives, in the neighbourhood of our last camp. On the plains I found two new species of Sida; and, on the tea-trees, a new form of Loranthus, with flowers in threes on a broad leafy bract, scarcely distinguishable from the real leaves. March 20. We travelled down to the water-holes, at which I had turned back.
It becomes calm at a quarter past three, with the rise of Venus. Mr. Calvert brought an edible mushroom out of Flourspill Scrub. The Loranthus of the Myal grows also on other Acacias with glaucous leaves. A bright yellow everlasting is very fine and frequent. Oct. 22. I left Kent's lagoon yesterday.
On a Casuarina near the swamp, I saw a beautiful Loranthus with rather small oval leaves, panicles of flowers, with the tube of the corolla green; segments of the limbs dark red; of a dwarf bushy habit. This beautiful parasite covered the tree, and was very showy. The afternoon turning out fine and warm, I collected several specimens and sorts of seeds.
After travelling seven miles, in a north-west direction, we came on a dense Myal scrub, skirted by a chain of shallow water-holes. The scrub trending towards, and disappearing in, the S. W.: the Loranthus and the Myal in immense bushes; Casuarina frequent. In the forest, Ranunculus inundatus; Eryngium with terete simple leaves, of which the horses are fond; Prasophyllum elatum, sweetly scented.
The country was very ridgy and hilly; and we found it exceedingly difficult to proceed along the river. We observed the poplar-gum again in the open forest, and a fine drooping loranthus growing on it. Pandanus was also very frequent, in clusters from three to eight trees. The clustered fig-tree gave us an ample supply of fruit, which, however, was not perfectly mellow.
I found a beautiful species of Loranthus, growing on acacia trees, and producing on its long pendulous shoots abundance of beautiful scarlet flowers; the tube of the corolla was two inches long, with a very short limb, and the plant has lanceolate, glossy leaves.
The coffee trees suffer much from rain at the time of flowering, as well as from the want of water for artificial irrigation, and also from a parasitic plant, a new species of loranthus, which clings to the branches.
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