Author: Lawrie Smith

Published: Journal September 2020

Image above: King Parrot eating an immature fruit from a Diplocyclos palmatus vine

The commemorative events to mark the 250th anniversary of the voyage of discovery in 1770 by Lt James Cook in command of HM Barque Endeavour were severely compromised by the impact of the pandemic that swept the world in 2020. Special events were planned, but unfortunately cancelled, in each of the various towns and locations along the east coast of Australia to coincide with the original dates of the landings – the first in Botany Bay, NSW and twelve more in Queensland.

Members of NPQ were involved with the planning of these commemorative events, generally through their local botanic garden or other town initiatives. This year two commemorative editions of the ‘Australian Plants Journal’ have been devoted to the story of the Endeavour voyage and the botanic discoveries: winter – covers Botany Bay and the Florilegium; summer – covers the landings in Queensland.

It has been a very interesting task for me to research, coordinate and edit the final text and photographs prepared by various authors about the landing places. Reading the excerpts from the journals of Cook and Banks has been very informative as it brings to life what our coastline was like in 1770. The following is a short extract from the full article to be published in the summer APJ edition in which John Elliott (NPQ Townsville) explains how the plant collection was catalogued, described and
preserved on board the Endeavour. Following that Bob Jago (NPQ Cairns) has provided an insight into the international travels of the initial specimens since collection in 1770.

How the Gentlemen spent their days on board the Endeavour.

Dr Daniel Solander had been a student of Linnaeus, and then colleague and editor, before moving to England in 1860 to catalogue the botanical holdings of the British Museum according to the Linnaean system. He became a close friend to Joseph Banks and readily agreed to accompany him on the voyage to the South Seas.

Whilst Banks made a catalogue of plants collected enroute, "in the order in which they were loosely placed in the drying books in which they were brought home", it was Solander who annotated the plants from New Holland. During the voyage it was he who roughly described the plants and whose MSS were finally bound as Plantae Novae Hollandiae in two volumes.

Despite the best laid plans these results were never published as originally intended by Banks as a ‘Florilegium’.
[Illustrations of the Botany of Capt. Cook’s Voyage Round the World etc. James Britten, London 1900]

Caricatures of Solander (left) and Banks (right) collecting on Cook’s first voyage, published in London in 1772. Published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand Vol. 42, No. 2, June 2012, 131137 (courtesy National Library of Australia).

International travels of the 1770 specimens

Many of the specimens collected by Banks and Solander from the east coast of Australia in 1770 are widely travelled. Firstly they travelled on the Endeavour from Australia to England. Then a number returned back to Australia as part of a reference set of Australian plants used by Robert Brown in his circumnavigation of Australia (1801-1803) in the Investigator with Captain Matthew Flinders. Since then duplicates have been widely distributed to various institutes throughout the world including several Australian Herbariums. They have also been back and forth from England to Australia on loan to numerous botanical researchers and this practice will no doubt continue for some time into the future.

Endeavour June 1770

(extracts from NPQ Townsville's newsletter, June 2020)

The following has been taken verbatim from the various journals of the principal characters on board the Endeavour. James Cook, Joseph Banks, and Sydney Parkinson. No changes to spelling etc have been made. It recounts the serendipitous manner in which the only local landfall was made, and the origin of the name ‘Palm Islands’.

On the 29th May 1770 the Endeavour was in the vicinity of Broad Sound near present day St Lawrence and named by Cook1 ‘the Bay of Inlets, — so named from the Number of Inlets Creeks &Ca in it’.

Cook continues—
"As I observed the tides to flow and Ebb something considerable I had some thoughts of laying the Ship a shore to clean her bottom. with this View both the Master and I went to look for a convinient place for that purpose and at the same time to look for fresh water not one drop of which we could find but met with several places where a Ship might be laid a shore with safety — I went again in search of fresh water but had no better success than before wherefore I gave over all thoughts of laying the Ship a shore being resolved on spending as little time as possible in a place that was likely to afford us no sort of refreshment." (Thirsty Sound).

The speed with which Cook made his way northward along the east Australian Coast left little time for exploration and the thought of ‘refreshment’ was clearly tempting. The delights of Tahiti were only a distant memory! On the 4th June the Endeavour was approaching Cape Gloucester, and despite the obvious temptations of the Whitsunday Passage, (named for the day the church commemorates that Festival), Cook did not wish to stop and lose the advantage of a full moon with which to sail at night—

"a number of small Bays and Coves on each side where ^to all appearances Ships might lay as it were in a Bason, at least so they appeard to me for I did not wait to examine them as having been in Port so lately and being unwilling to loose the benefit of a light Moon"2 On the same day Sydney Parkinson3 writes that the Endeavour—
"cleared the straits and islands and got into an open sea. The land upon the coast was full of very high hills, whose bowels are probably rich in ore; but their surface is poor indeed, being more barren, and fuller of stones, than any land we had seen."

By June 6th Cook had named both Cape Cleveland and Magnetical Island "and the compass did not travis well when near it. they are both tolerable high and so is the Mainland within them and the whole appear'd to have the most ruged, rocky and barren Surface of any we have yet seen".
[1 James Cook's Journal of Remarkable Occurrences aboard His Majesty's Bark Endeavour, 1768-1771. NLA Manuscript 1
2 ibid James Cook
3 . Sydney Parkinson's Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty's Ship, The Endeavour..., London: 1773]

Not at all encouraging for any form of refreshment and it only got worse as—
"On the 7th, we were between a parcel of islands and the main. The mainland looked very barren and dreary: the hills upon it looked like a heap of rubbish, on which nothing was to be seen, excepting a few low bushes: but the islands made a better appearance. We saw a few people in canoes, striking fish, some smoke on the main, and some palm-trees"4

Clearly the sight of Palm Trees triggered some excitement amongst the Gentlemen as Cook comments in his journal—
"In the PM we saw several large smooks upon the main, some people Canoes, and as we thought Cocoanutt Trees upon one of the Islands, and as ^a few of these nutts would have been very acceptable to us at this Time I sent Lieutt Hicks a Shore with whome went Mr Banks and Dr Solander to see what was to be got, in the mean time we kep standing in for the Island with the Ship – At 7 oClock they returnd on board having met with nothing worth observing the trees we saw were a small kind of Cabbage Palms"

And Joseph Banks was clearly just as disappointed—
"After dinner an appearance very much like Cocoa nut trees tempted us to hoist out a boat and go ashore, where we found our supposd Cocoanut trees to be no more than bad Cabbage trees. The Countrey about them was very stoney and barren and it was almost dark when we got ashsore; we made a shift however to gather 14 or 15 new plants after which we repaird to our boats,"5

This brief excursion ashore is now memorialised as the Palm Islands, some sixteen islands, of which twelve are named. The Endeavour’s exact course is still a matter of conjecture, but Cook tells us that they sailed between the mainland and islands which were—
"found to consist of a group of small Islands laying about 5 Leagues from the Main we being at this time between the two."

The rate at which Cook sailed up the coast is reflected in the sketchy quality of the charts now retained by the British Museum. But it would not be unreasonable to draw the conclusion that it could well have been Orpheus Island that they landed on, as the chart shows a distinct eastward tack towards a large island perhaps at Hazard Bay? This is conjecture, but it would certainly have been on the westward side of the group, which would rule out the main island, Great Palm Island, which despite being by far the largest does not seem to be well represented on the map.
[4 ibid. Sydney Parkinson
5 The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771 State Library of NSW]

"The Australian plants, which formed the most important portion of the collection were never arranged for press in the manner of the foregoing, but a transcript of the rough MS was made, apparently by someone imperfectly acquainted with botanical terminology or unable to read the draft, as it contains numerous errors."8 So, bearing in mind all these pitfalls for the curious, it is safe to say that some of the plants collected on the 7th June 1770 were (current name in bold)—

Aizoaceae
   Halimum portulacastrum
Sesuvium portulcastrum

Apocynaceae
   Sarcostemma australe
Sarcostemma australe

Asteraceae
   Pterocaulon glandulosus
Pterocaulon serrulatum

Convolvulaceae
   Convolvulus multivalvis
Jacquemontia paniculata

Fabaceae
   Canavalia maritima
Canavalia rosea

Lamiaceae
   Siphonanthus floribundus
Clerodendrum floribundum

(Type: J Banks and D Solander s. n. Bay of Inlets, Palm Island, Endeavour River, Qld. 1779.) 

Malvaceae
   Hibiscus radiatus
Hibiscus radiatus

Pilttosporaceae
   Pittosporum ferrugineum
Pittosporum ferrugineum subsp. linifolium

Rubiaceae
   Knoxia stricta
Knoxia sumatrensis

This will not be a complete list, and all of them were collected at several sites.