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STRANGE RELICS IN
GARDEN MUSEUIM
Chip of Caesar's Bridge
And a Bit of Ireland
Standing unobstrusively near the far eastern wall of
the Botanic Garden is the Museum of Economic Botany,
with its name in gold letters painted across the front. It
is old and neglected now, yet it holds strange and faded
treasures within its walls.
THERE must be many people in
Adelaide who have never seen the
inside of the Museum of Economic
Botany-even those who are familiar
with its massive, creeper-covered front
and depressing name. It does not in
vite the passer-by.
Inside there is a smell of age, as
though nobody had entered the hall for
many years. The boards echo hollowly
under the feet. On top of the cases
lining the walls stand the busts of
famous men-Sir Isaac Newton, Sir
Joseph Banks, Rudolf Virchow, and
many others, staring down at the silent
roomn.
The building is 58 years old, and is
not much used now that there are
modern botanical museums at the
University and the Waite Institute. A
few students and an occasional party
of school-children are its main visitors.
Yet here are strange treasures to be
found. In one case, with the label.
Miscellaneous Objects, are seed-pods of
the basbub and dried rose petals from
Turkey; crab's eye seeds used for rosa
ries, Chinese joss-sticlks, tree bark from
Brazil which is used for soap, a piece
of mallee from the spot where Bourke
and Wills camped, and some leaves
from the Malay Peninsula used as a
cure for the opium habit.
Here is an ancient, water-worn piece
of wood, which came from a bridge
built across the Rhine by Julius Caesar,
56 years before Christ. In another
case is a small, square piece of earth,
which, the card rather pathetically
states, is a piece of turf from Ireland,
presented by Det.-Inspector O'Sullivan.
A few dried leaves in another case
"Pituri leaves." states the card, which
are smoked and chewed by the Aus
tralian natives, and are said to pro
duce a voluptuous, dreamy sensation.
There is a case showing vegetable dyes,
too--ndigo. the oldest dye in use;
henna, with which Egyptian ladies
used to dye their nails orange.
All down the centre of the room are
wax models of fruit-pears, apples,
peaches, quinces, in every I variety.
They are very life-like, but some of
the pears and quinces have collapsed
and gone quite flat, others have gap
ing holes and show their empty in
teriors.
Then, sthartlingly, you come on an
array of fairy toadstools in a case, of
every color imaginable. They are
wax models, of course, from the or
dinary mushrooms to brilliant orangei
toadstools. The cards, according to
a printed note, show which fungi arei
safe-red cards for poisonous ones,
white for harmless, and blue for
edible. But. unfortunately, nearly all
the cards have faded to the same
color.
There is something a little faded
about everything in this room, and the
pictures of bearded botanists on the
walls belong to a past generation. It'
seems almost a sacrilege to enter thisl
building and disturb the brooding
peace of Sir Isaac Newton and the
others.
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