Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/172

 remarkable production, the most striking, perhaps, in the whole colony, I have given the specific appellation of Hookeri.

The Vasse Inlet, following the winding of the road, is about 150 miles south of Freemantle; and the Dasypogon first makes its appearance on the side of the footpath (for there is no cart-road) to Augusta, about six miles south of the Vasse. When his Excellency, Governor Hutt, visited Augusta, last summer, he presented me with a leaf and head of flowers of this plant, but the leaves were narrower than any which I had observed, although I had travelled among an abundance of it for upwards of twenty miles. I have since learned, from Mrs. Molloy, that the Governor's specimens were gathered at M'Leod's Creek, about eleven miles to the north of Augusta, and this settlement, again, is supposed to be about sixty miles from the Vasse. Augusta is situated at the mouth of the Blackwood River, believed to be the same as the Beaufort, as the Williams River is now ascertained to be identical with the Murray.

The curious Asphodelous plant which I found at King George's Sound, is common in the Vasse district, and I gathered one specimen of it in flower. The prickle-like petals, or bracts, are purple at the period of inflorescence; there are six anthers, about an inch long, borne on filaments of the same length, which are attached at their bases to the six interior petals: the style overtops the anthers by about a quarter of an inch.

By far the finest species of Boronia I have ever observed in Western Australia, grows on the banks of swampy brooks between the Vasse and Augusta. Captain Molloy informs me he has seen it as high as his head, when riding on horseback. Its foliage is generally pinnated with four pairs of leaflets and an odd one, an inch long; the footstalks and the flowers solitary, large, and of a deep rose colour, springing from the axils of the leaves, on petioles about half an inch in length, each furnished with two minute opposite bracteas. The plant varies, in having its foliage and stems smooth or hairy.