The domain and country in the immediate vicinity of Sydney was assuming (in September) a gay and brilliant aspect from the profusion of flowering shrubs and plants strewed over the arid soil; there was, however, a peculiar character in the vegetation, the foliage of the trees having a dry appearance, and being destitute of the lustre so observable in those of other countries. This want of lustre is attributed by that justly celebrated botanist, Dr. Brown, to the equal existence of cutaneous glands on both surfaces of the leaf;[25] and another peculiarity is the trees attaining a great elevation, with branches only at the summit, and shedding their bark; some of the trees being seen perfectly decorticated and appearing in a smooth new bark, whilst others have the outer bark not yet quite thrown off, but hanging in long strips from the trunk. These peculiarities, in combination with others, convey to us different ideas from those formed from the vegetation of other countries. Among the beauties of the kingdom of Flora, which are lavished so profusely in this colony, the different species of the _Banksia_[26] genus (or honeysuckle, as all the species are indiscriminately termed by the colonists) would arrest the attention of the stranger, by its peculiar growth as well as remarkable flowers; the species _Banksia ericifolia_ was most profusely in bloom, its erect tufts of orange-coloured flowers imparting to it a lively appearance. That curious and interesting tree the _Xanthorrhœa_,—yellow gum or grass tree of the colonists,—would attract observation from its peculiar growth, the trunk being surmounted by long grassy foliage, from the centre of which arises a long scape terminated by a cylindrical spike, either crowded with its small white flowers of sickly odour, or with dark coloured angulated capsules, containing small black seeds. The flowers of the several species secrete a honey, which exudes at first like dew-drops, and afterwards concretes into an albumen, attracting multitudes of insects, which soon deface the purity the flowers before presented. The natives readily produce fire by rubbing two pieces of the trunk of this tree together.