56G BOTAXICAL :N'0TFS on QUEEXSLAjS"!), 



of vegetation, and the term thicket others. In reality the word 

 scrub is an incumbrance because it confuses by classing under 

 one term the most diversified features. Still as it is employed 

 everywhere in the colonies I suppose we must put up w^ith it and 

 try to render its ambiguity less misleading by descriptive explana- 

 tions. This is the object of the present paper, and it proposes 

 to deal with the scrubs of Queensland. 



In a former w^ork* I have described at some length what is 

 meant by one kind of scrub in South Australia. This is what is 

 known as Mallee. It covers many thousand square miles of flat 

 country on the low lands between the south bank of the River 

 Murray and the sea. Through all this vast extent the land is 

 thickly and almost exclusively clothed with a dense shrubby 

 growth of Eucalyptus. I do not pretend to determine the species 

 since there are three or four and there may be more, E. oleosa, 

 P.V.M., is one of the species and E. diunosa, A. Cunn. is another, 

 with occasionally trees of E. gracilis, E.v.M. But which of the 

 two first predominates I cannot say. They are not trees : instead 

 of a trunk or stem, there rises from each root a cluster of slender 

 stalks scarcely an inch in diameter, which ends at from eight to 

 fourteen feet in height in a cluster of pale olive leaves. All 

 round the stem, small dry withered branches stand out. These 

 represent successive bush fires which sweep over the j)lains, at 

 intervals of about three years or more, for it takes three years 

 growth to place the bushes in a state of thickness sufficient to feed 

 a fire again. The soil is hard and level, almost indurated, of 

 yellow or brown colour and with abundance of brown polished 

 or glazed rounded pebbles of iron oxides. There is more sand 

 than clay in the ground, but this varies. In many places it is soft 

 and boggy, or again covered with sand and even crystals of 

 selenite of large size. Besides the Mallee as the Eucalyptus 

 hicket is called, there is but little in the way of shrubs or trees. 



* Geolo<^ical Observations in South Australia, London, 1863. 



