Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0174
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[Page 174]
170.
Some account of New Zealand
but much more delicate than our skate we had flat fish also like Soles & flounders, Eels & Congers of several sorts & many others which any Europeeans who may come here after us will not fail to find the advantage of besides excellent oysters & many sorts of shell fish & cockles, clams &c.
[Margin note] Plants
Tho the countrey is generaly coverd with an abundant verdure of grass & trees yet I cannot say that it is productive of so great a variety as many countries I have seen the intire novelty however of the greatest part of what we found recompens'd us as natural historians for the want of variety. Sow thistle indeed garden nightshade & perhaps 1 or 2 kinds of Grasses were exactly the same as in England 3 or 4 kinds of Fern the same as those of the West Indies & a plant or 2 that are common to almost all the world & these were all that had before been describd by any botanist out of about 400 species except 5 or 6 which we ourselves had before seen in terra del Fuego
Eatable Vegetables there are very few We indeed as people who had been long at sea found great benefit in the article of health by eating plentifully of wild Celery & a kind of Cresses which grew every where plentifully abundanly near the sea side we also once or twice met with an herb like that which the countrey people in England call Lambs Quarters or Fat hen