348 ON THE FLORA OF MT. WILSON, 



From the point where the road crosses the neck between the- 

 Bowen and the Wollongambe to the foot of the Zigzag, the soil 

 is derived from the weathering of the Hawkesbury Sandstone, 

 which here appears to contain a good deal of iron. At this part,_ 

 the vegetation is of the ordinary character obtaining all over the 

 Blue Mountains. But at the foot of the Zig-zag, the sandy soil' 

 is mixed with the basaltic detritus, and the vegetation at once 

 changes. The forest becomes very dense with creepers, sassafras 

 and other brush trees, and tree-ferns. There is a distinct aromatic- 

 smell, mingled with that of decaying vegetation and fungoid 

 growths, which I have everywhere noticed as a characteristic of 

 the basaltic brush forests. 



The winding road passes through this brush country up to the 

 top of the Zigzag, where thei'e is a patch of sandstone soil again,, 

 and, as before, the plants are of the ordinary Blue Mountain 

 type, with one difference, that a number of minute and rare 

 species of the genus Prasophyllum occur here, some of which 

 have so far not been collected anywhere else. The road then 

 winds round the highest part of the mountain, with thick growing 

 vegetation of the brush forest type above and below. The houses 

 are scattered along the length of this part of the ridge for about 

 a mile; the ridge running along some six miles to Mt. Irvine, 

 which is the extremity of Mt. Wilson, and some 700 feet lower 

 down than Mt. Wilson proper. Here two or three blocks of land, 

 have recently been taken up and are being cleared. The vegeta- 

 tion all along the road is brush, Ijut at Mt. Irvine many plants 

 occur which are not found at the older settlement, and which, 

 show an approximation to the flora of the Kurrajong. Unfortu- 

 nately very little collecting has been done at Mt. Irvine, and. 

 from the extremely patchy way in which plants occur all over the 

 mountain it is jDrobable that many additional plants will be found 

 here. 



Quite a number of species are found onl}- in extremely limited 

 areas all over the mountain, and continued collecting will be 

 likely to yield other species. 



