Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places, New South Wales, page 263

Page 263

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

New South Wales

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New South Wales (continued)

in the West Indies Indian Kale were in tolerable plenty, as was also a sort of Purslane. The other plants we eat were a kind of Beans, very bad, a kind of Parsley and a plant something resembling spinage, which two last grew only to the Southward. I shall give their botanical names as I beleive some of them were never eat by Europeans before: first Indian Kale (Arum Esculentum), Red flowerd purslane (Sesuvium Portulacastrum), Beans (Glycine speciosa) Parsley (Apium ), Spinage (Tetragonia cornuta). Fruits we had still fewer; to the South was one something resembling a heart cherry only the stone was soft (Eugenia ) which had nothing but a light acid to recommend it; to the Northward again a kind of Figs growing from the stalk of a tree, very indifferent (Ficus caudiciflora), a fruit we calld Plumbs like them in Colour but flat like a little cheese ( ), and another much like a damson both in appearance and taste; both these last however were so full of a large stone that eating them was but an unprofitable business. Wild Plantanes we had also but so full of seeds that they had little or no pulp.

For the article of timber, there is certainly no want of trees of more than midling size and some in the valleys very large, but all of a very hard nature; our carpenters

Voyaging Accounts

© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) *259, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-263.html