I was convinced this was their character, and not a LUSUS NATUROE. [A
still more remarkable specimen of this tree was found by Mr. Kennedy in
the apex of a basaltic peak, in the kind of gap of the range through
which we passed on the 15th of May, and of which he made the accompanying
drawing.]

These trees grew here only in that almost inaccessible, crater-like
hollow, which had impeded me in my attempt to reach the summit.[*]
Leaving the horses, however, I scrambled through the briars and up the
rocks to the summit, but found it, after all this trouble, too thickly
covered with scrub to afford me the desired view to the westward, even
after I had ascended a tree on the edge of the broad and level plateau,
so thickly covered with bushes. On returning and descending eastward
towards the open country, I found a much more practicable way down than
that by which I had ascended. Returning to the valley of the Cogoon, I
passed between the two summits, and found a good open passage to the
westward between the brigalow. Thermometer, at sunrise, 20°; at noon,
70°; at 4 P. M., 68°; at 9, 30°. Height above the sea 1043 feet.

[* This remarkable plant constitutes a new and very curious genus of
Sterculiads. It agrees with STERCULIA in the position of the radicle with
respect to the hilum, but it is, otherwise, a BRACHYCHITON, with which it
more especially corresponds in the singular condition of the seeds. These
are placed, six together, in the interior of long-stalked, ovate,
mucronate, smooth, deep brown follicles, of a tough papery texture, and
lined with a thin fur of stellate hairs. The seeds themselves are also
closely covered with starry hairs, which are so entangled that they hold
the seeds together firmly; these hairs, however, are absent from the
upper half of the seed, whose thin brittle vascular primine is shining,
smooth, and marked with a brown nipple, the remains of the foramen.