78 BOTANICAL NOTES ON QUEENSLAND, 



well to mention that the dark purple berries o£ a kindred species 

 or variety are used for a tincture which is much valued in 

 America as a remedy for rheumatism, and was once a celebrated 

 remedy for cancer. The root is an emetic and cathartic, and 

 the young shoots when well boiled are eaten as a vegetable. In 

 the "West Indies the leaves are used like washing soap. 



Another weed which literally covers the land in fallow as 

 closely as grass, but growing up into a tall straight thicket five 

 or six feet high is a species of Tlrigeron {canadensis or linifolms)» 

 It goes by the name of cobbler's peg, from the ready way in 

 which the erect fragments of old stems penetrate the shoes. 



The agricultural land is nearly always the cleared forest on the 

 banks of the rivers and this is not upon the alluvial banks of the 

 river so much as the red volcanic soil which follows the south 

 bank of the Burnett in a belt varying in width from a few 

 hundred yards to a mile. It has evidently come from a small 

 rounded hill near the sea coast which is surrounded with frag- 

 ments of scoriaceous lava. Usually the red soil is quite free from 

 stone or scoriae, from which I suppose that the deposit is a thick 

 flow of the volcanic mud which is always connected with eruptions 

 the forest is very dense and of the kind usually called scrub in 

 Queensland near the coast. This scrub is mainly distinguished 

 by the absence of that Australian aspect which the presence of 

 Eucalypts, Acacias, and Proteacese would give it. They are almost 

 totally wanting in these forests which are composed of several 

 species of Ficus, Har^ndlia Hilli, S. penJula, Diploglottis Cun- 

 ninghami, Cupania anacardioides, C. semiglauca, Dysoxylon 

 Muelleriy D. rufum, with here and there immense trees of 

 Flindersla Ocsleyana. Underneath these trees there is a tangled 

 growth of brushwood, at least near the edge of the forest, but 

 when one penetrates any distance where the growth of tall trees 

 is very thick and the light obscure, the ground is encumbered 

 with dead logs and the humus from decayed leaves which only 



