tion>James Edward Smith
A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066061944
Table of Contents
TO
THOMAS WILSON, ESQ. F.L.S.
AT WHOSE PERSUASION
THIS WORK WAS UNDERTAKEN,
AND
ON WHOSE FRIENDLY COMMUNICATIONS
IT IS FOUNDED,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES
ARE INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
An attempt to make the Public acquainted with some of the productions of a country of which they have lately heard so much, and in which they are now as a nation so deeply interested—a country too so extremely unlike all those best known to Europeans, cannot fail to be acceptable, however imperfect in its extent. The present work must be considered only as, what it pretends to be, a Specimen of the riches of this mine of botanical novelty. It may inform the cultivators of plants concerning what they have already obtained from New Holland, as well as point out some other things worthy of their acquisition in future. As the author intends it for the use of his countrymen and countrywomen, it is written in their own language—a language every day growing more universal, and which many circumstances now seem to point out as likely to become the most so of any modern one.
The essential characters alone are given in Latin, as well as in English. The figures are taken from coloured drawings, made on the spot, and communicated to Mr. Wilson by John White Esq. Surgeon General to the Colony, along with a most copious and finely-preserved collection of dried specimens, with which the drawings have in every case been carefully compared.
December 1793.
BILLARDIERA scandens.
Climbing Apple-berry.
●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
PENTANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Petala quinque, foliolis calycinis alterna. Nectarium nullum. Stigma simplex. Bacca supera, polysperma.
Petals five, alternate with the leaves of the calyx. Nectary none. Stigma simple. Berry superior, with many seeds.
Spec. Char. B. pedunculis folitariis unifloris, foliis subhirsutis.
Flower-stalks solitary, single-flowered. Leaves somewhat hairy.
AMID all the beauty and variety which the vegetable productions of New Holland display in such profusion, there has not yet been discovered a proportionable degree of usefulness to mankind, at least with respect to food. This is our first and most natural enquiry in a scene of such novelty; but it is an enquiry natural to all the lower orders of sensible beings, as well as to man. It may perhaps mortify his pride to think how much more quickly and certainly inferior animals judge upon such a subject. Their powers however reach no farther. It is the peculiar privilege of reasoning man, not only to extend his enquiries to a multiplicity of attainable benefits to himself and his species, besides the mere animal necessity of food, but also to walk with God through the garden of creation, and be initiated into the different plants of his providence in the construction and œconomy of all these various beings; to study their dependencies upon one another in an infinitely
