In company with my friend, Lieutenant Breton, R. N., I visited _Elizabeth Bay_, about two miles distant from Sydney, and the property of the Honourable Alexander Macleay. The situation is beautiful, being in a retired bay or cove of Port Jackson, and the garden and farm is near the sea. This spot, naturally of the most sterile description, has been rendered, at a great expense and perseverance, in some degree productive as a nursery for rare trees, shrubs, and plants, from all parts of the world. We were much gratified with the valuable and rare specimens the garden contained, and surprised that a spot possessed of no natural advantages should have been rendered, comparatively, a little paradise. In the garden, a species of _cactus_ was pointed out to me by the gardener, Mr. Henderson, which Mr. Macleay had brought some years ago from Rio Janeiro: it had flowered at the usual time, and they had changed into what had the usual external form of the fruit. On making a section of one, it had the usual fructual character, although in an immature state. I was, however, informed that the fruit never attained maturity, but became as one of the _branches_, blossoms being produced from it, which would again produce fruit, and that fruit would not ripen, but again produce flowers, so continuing during the whole of the flowering season, without ripening any fruit, having consequently a curious anomaly of fruit producing flowers, instead of flowers producing fruit. It has always, during the time it has been planted in the garden, exhibited this phenomenon, which was never observed in the plant from which this was taken at Rio. It must therefore be considered as a curious anomaly in vegetation. The greatest importer and manufacturer of New Zealand flax[32] in the colony is Mr. Maclaren. I visited his extensive establishment, which had just been completed on the north shore near Sydney, for the cleaning and manufacture of the flax into rope. He has also establishments at New Zealand, from whence he imports the flax, exporting some to England, and manufacturing the remainder into cordage for the use of the colonial vessels. He has also a powerful hydraulic press, for the purpose of compressing the flax into bales for exportation. He manufactures from this material a large quantity of whale lines for the colonial whalers, who speak in high terms of the quality of the rope, for that purpose. The rope manufactured from this flax, takes the tar readily, and the small lines are passed through it previous to their being made into rope of larger size.[33] As I hope the time is not far distant when its value will be more appreciated, and the prejudice, at present so much against it, will have diminished, I may perhaps be excused in giving an account of this valuable plant from my own observations during a visit to New Zealand.