Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/179

 we dined with Mr. Tate, a young Irish gentleman, who has lately settled on the right bank of the Murray, about two miles above its junction with the Dandelup. This latter is a small river, remarkable for the fertility of its banks, which are nearly level with the stream; unlike those of the Murray, which are much elevated above its waters. In the latter case, of course, there is no alluvial deposit, though the soil, a strong loam, when manured, will yield heavy crops of wheat. The margins of the Murray river are covered with a beautiful Banksia, with nearly entire leaves, which I suppose to be Mr. Brown's B. verticillata; though, to me, it hardly appears specifically distinct from the long narrow-leaved kind, of which I have sent you specimens in the last collection. A fine new Manglesia, to judge from its foliage, grows on the sloping bank of the river, immediately at the back of Mr. Tate's present residence, for he is not yet moved into his new house. This species is much like Tab. CCCXXXVII, of your Icones Plantarum; but with leaves more than twice as long and narrower, perfectly smooth, of a deep green and not glaucous, as in that species. It attains the size of a small tree, with a rough bark, very different in these respects from the one you have figured, which is a spreading bush, remarkable for its glaucous foliage and stems. Both are aquatics, at least inhabitants of river-banks, and their seed-vessels are much alike. On the banks of the Murray I also observed a shrub, with willow-like foliage and seeds in clusters, resembling those of Hornbeam, which I had never seen elsewhere.

About two miles above Mr. Tate's house is the far-famed Pinjarra, a most excellent farm of Mr. Oakley's, who also keeps a comfortable inn and store there. This spot is noted in the history of our Colony, as being almost the only place where any approach to a pitched battle has occurred between the settlers and natives, ever since the first occupation by Europeans of these districts; the aborigines, owing to the extraordinary idea which they entertain, that the white people are the spirits of their deceased relatives, have always