Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/184

 acquainted. A curious plant also came in my way, near the Vasse, very much like what is figured and described in the Icones Plantarum, Tab. CCXXXVII., it belongs to Compositæ, and under the yellow flowers there are five glandulous filaments.

I reached Mr. Chapman's farm at the Vasse Inlet, soon after dark, and received there the kindest possible welcome, and next morning proceeded up the Vasse Inlet, to Cattle Chosen Busseltown; which, as the name implies, is one of the best dairy farms in Western Australia, though the whole district of the Vasse is noted for butter and cheese. Mr. Bussel is brother-in-law to Mr. Taylor, late of King George's Sound, a Scotch gentleman, who, having realized a considerable fortune, and relinquished the intention of returning to his native land, now lives with him. By these gentlemen and Mrs. John Bussel, wife to the eldest son, I was kindly pressed to stay at their house, but Mrs. Molloy being a Botanist and an old acquaintance, I could not do otherwise than remain with her, during my abode in this neighbourhood.

I have already given you some account of the plants which I met with to the south of the Vasse, but I omitted one, a lanceolate-leaved Stylidium, which I found in flower, and had already sent you some specimens of, from King George's Sound. The weather rendered this excursion both unpleasant and unprofitable, the heavy rains keeping me wet, day and night: the whole time, nearly a fortnight, my shirt was soaking on my back; so I will not annoy you with a recapitulation of disagreeable particulars; but proceed to say that Captain Molloy, being an old Waterloo man, would not suffer me to depart till after the 18th of June, the anniversary of that battle: and on the night of the 17th there came on, one of the most extraordinary storms I ever knew; accompanied with rain, wind, thunder and lightning. On my return to Australind I found that the Leschenault district had suffered from a similar visitation at the self-same time. Its effects were first visible on a narrow belt of land which lies between the Leschenault Estuary and the sea,