Cirrus@Austlit

Daniel Bunce trained in England as a gardener and botanist. He migrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1833 where he established his own nursery in Launceston. In 1839, he moved to Port Phillip where he studied the language of the Indigenous people of Westernport and, again, set up a nursery.

In 1846, Bunce joined Ludwig Leichhardt's second attempt to cross Australia. On his return, he made his own journey of exploration, following the course of the Murray River. Bunce became a mine manager in Bendigo and continued his study of Indigenous languages. In 1851, he published Languages of the Aborigines.

Bunce became director of the Geelong Botanical Gardens in 1858. He contributed many articles on botany and horticulture to colonial publications, and published further books including Twenty-Three Years' Wanderings in the Australias and Tasmania, Including Travels with Dr Leichhardt (1857).