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The camel FODDER-PLANTS of WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 

 By Spencer le M. Moore, F.L.S. 



The present paper is the result of some observations made by 

 the writer while travelling recently with a small camel-train in the 

 interior of Western Australia. As it is proposed to publish at a 

 later date the botanical results of the journey, it is hoped that a few 

 cursory remarks bearing on the special character of the paper will 

 be deemed sufficient on the present occasion. The route taken was 

 from the mining township of Southern Cross, situated in the 

 Yilgaru goldfield, and about 250 miles west from Perth ; thence 

 north-east to Wangine or Siberia Soak ; from there almost due east 

 to Goongarrie or Ninety-Mile, and onwards in a north-easterly 

 direction to Mount Margaret, on the shore of the great salt lake 

 known as Lake Carey. The country between Lake Carey and 

 Coolgardie was then traversed to and fro, after which, on a general 

 north-north-west bearing from Lake Carey, Lake Darlot was 

 reached, and Coolgardie again arrived at via Mount Malcolm and 

 Goongarrie. After this the camels were retained for some time in 

 the neighbourhood of Coolgardie on its south-west side. 



It must suffice here to mention that the ground passed over con- 

 sists of breadths of unauriferous alternating with auriferous country. 

 The former is largely composed of conglomerates and of granites 

 and gneisses which have undergone more or less metamorphism ; 

 the latter of schists of various kinds, with outcrops of quartz, 

 diorite, and ironstone. The granite and gneiss very frequently 

 appear in the form of huge outcropping masses many acres in 

 extent, the irregular surfaces of which have been worn into shallow 

 pans — the so-called gnamma-holes — ^which hold water after rain, 

 and it is usually at the foot of such masses that the " soaks " are 

 dug. Some of these soaks, when the water-catch is a good one, 

 contain water long after the rain has fallen ; some even, in spite of 

 the serious drain to which they have of recent years been submitted 

 by prospectors and teamsters, may still be described as almost 

 perennial sources of the precious fluid. It is almost exclusively in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of these gnamma-rocks and during 

 the cool weather, or in low-lying places in springtime where the soil 

 has retained some of its moisture, as well as along the banks or in 

 the bed of creeks after heavy rain, that the lusher types of vege- 

 tation are found. Elsewhere the flora is of purely Australian type, 

 by far the greater part of it having some means by which trans- 

 piration is hindered, such as phyllodes, or leaves oriented in the 

 manner of phyllodes, essential oils or resins, stomata in pits, 

 woolly covering, &c. And this is no matter for wonder, bearing in 

 mind the small rainfall characteristic of the interior of the colony. 



It must be understood that the following list is not to be 

 regarded as by any means an exhaustive one. Thus, to take only 

 one instance — the various species of Acacia are probably all more 

 or less nutritive, but only a few of them find a place here. Having 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 35. [May, 1897.] m 



