HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



97 



NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN FORESTS. 



By THE EDITOR. 



I HE magnificent spe- 



cimens of woods 

 and timbers, as 

 well as the beau- 

 tiful water - colour 

 drawings of the 

 flowers of the Aus- 

 tralian forests, 

 which everybody 

 saw in the Co- 

 lonial Exhibition, 

 convey a poor idea 

 of the amazing 

 wealth of vegetable 

 life in Australia 

 during the early 

 summer months. 

 The vivid bright- 

 ness of the green 

 fern-tree gullies at 

 the Exhibition were only so many hand specimens of 

 this striking flora. 



Even within a few miles of the great and populous 

 cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, vegetable 

 nature is generally undisturbed. The range of the 

 Mount Lofty hills, four or five miles behind Adelaide, 

 abound in fern and grass tree gullies, where parrots 

 are as numerous as sparrows, and opossums furnish 

 abundant sport to the youthful sportsmen. Still 

 further away, towards Mount Barker, the dense 

 forests are untouched except by the clearings, where 

 splendid villas have been dropped in their midst, 

 and room made for gardens wherein all the fruit 

 trees of the world are gathered together. 



The suburbs of Melbourne extend much farther 

 into the country ; but even there, at such places as 

 Mount Macedon, Fernshaw, and in the Dandenong 

 ranges generally, which latter are plainly visible from 

 Melbourne city, the vegetable kingdom flourishes in 

 uninterrupted luxuriance. The sides of the hills are 

 seamed with gullies, down which the quiet streams 

 trickle, overshadowed and over-canopied by the lace- 

 like umbrageousness of gigantic tree ferns, some of 

 No. 269.— May 1887. 



which, as the Dicksonia antarctica, grow to the height 

 of more than thirty feet. Here and there are huge 

 "Stringy Barks" {Eucalyptus macrorkyncha), or 

 " Messmates" {Eucalyptus obliqua) — both of them gum 

 trees, whose trunks are frequently fifteen feet in 

 diameter. An enormous variety of shrubs, belonging 

 to various natural orders, are competing for existence, 

 and inviting both insects and birds to visit them by 

 the gorgeous colours of their flowers, although the 

 native heaths {Epacris) have apparently triumphed 

 as far as abundance goes. Dwarf ferns crowd and 

 cover the cool,moist rocks, about which the forest trees 

 extend ; whilst from many of the latter the "Supple- 

 Jack" (Clematis aristata) hangs down its dense 

 foliage, having first interlaced the stems together by 

 its rope-like cords. Higher up the hills and moun- 

 tains we find the Hill Tree fern (Alsophila australis), 

 sometimes standing forth like a sentinel in the very 

 face of the sun, its green fronds not unfrequently 

 being fifteen feet long. 



Both at Fernshaw and Dandenong you see 

 specimens of the gigantic gum-tree (Eucalyptus 

 amygdalina), some of which attain an altitude of 400 

 feet, and one of which not long ago was found 4S0 

 feet long. Concerning this tree, Baron von Muller, 

 the Government botanist, calculated that the timber 

 from it alone, if cut into one-inch planks, would 

 cover a field of nine and a-half acres. " She-Oaks " 

 (Casicarina) and "Native Pines" (Fraiela), both of 

 which are found fossilised in the Eocene strata of 

 England, are among the most prominent of older 

 trees ; whilst various gum-trees of less magnitude are 

 glad to grow where the big ones cannot. Nearly all 

 these gum-trees have learned the trick of turning the 

 edges of their leaves towards the sun, so as to 

 diminish the transpiration, or loss of their moisture. 

 The result is an almost shadeless forest. The Acacias, 

 or " Wattles," have met the same difficulty in another 

 way. When the brilliant yellow and primrose- 

 coloured tasselly blossoms of these trees are put forth, 

 the atmosphere is laden with their powerful fragrance, 

 reminding us of the smell of bitter almonds. On the 

 huge trunks of all trees alike, the "Stag-horn fern " 



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