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.
