Nat. 



8 Sutton, Notes on the Sandringham Flora. [^"^M;,y 



too great a proportion of salt. It is interesting to note that 

 these pecuHarities are not found in halophytes only, but are 

 also present in plants growing in very different situations and 

 under widely different conditions, where, owing to acidity (in 

 peat bogs), extreme coldness (in arctic and alpine places), or 

 aridity (in deserts, on rocks, or the bark of trees), the same 

 difficulty of absorption exists and the same necessity for con- 

 servation of absorbed water obtains. The soil or substratum 

 being in all these cases either actually (physically) or physio- 

 logically dry. 



Of the families usually described as markedly halophilous, 

 nearly all are represented. The few exceptions are the 

 Tamarinaceae, Rhizophoraceae, and Asparageae, which would not 

 be looked for ; Plumbaginaceas, of which the world-wide " Sea 

 Lavender," Statice taxanthcma, is found elsewhere on the shores 

 of Port Phillip ; and the Zygophyllaceae, the Victorian members 

 of which are confined, with two exceptions, to the north-west 

 of the State. 



Perhaps the most interesting of the foreshore plants are 

 those found about Picnic and Rickett's Points and other places 

 towards Beaumaris, growing in the cracks and crevices of the 

 flat reefs periodically covered by the tides. They may be 

 said to constitute an ' association ' of lithophilous halophytes 

 — chasmophytes — and, save in the salt marshes near the Yarra 

 mouth, where some of them are abundant, and near the Albert 

 Park Lagoon, where a couple of them are still existent, they 

 hardly occur elsewhere. At a little distance they show, in 

 size, succulence, and habit, a strong family likeness, although 

 widely separated systematically. They have, in fact, in adapting 

 themselves to the surroundings, come to possess similar 

 ' growth forms ' (epharmonic convergence). Two of them 

 belong to the Salsolace?e, most halophilous of all plant families 

 — the " Sea Crab-grass," Salicornia australis, occurring abun- 

 dantly, and that veritable cosmopolite, the " Sea-blite," 

 Suceda maritima, only infrequently. Every here and there the 

 " Smooth Sea-heath," Frankenia IcBvis, almost as widespread 

 a plant as the last, is found. No other is so venturesome, and 

 in December its pretty pinkish-white flowers were seen 

 blossoming even under the wave. Another wide ranger, the 

 " Creeping Brookweed," Samoliis repens, of the Primulacese, is 

 closely associated with WUsonia rotundifolia, of the Con- 

 volvulaceae, and the Amaranth. Hemichroa {Polycnemon) 

 pentandra. About Ricketts Point these three seem to be 

 equally prevalent, and the two latter are notable as having 

 a more restricted endemismus than any of the others, not ex- 

 tending beyond Australia. Of the rest, Mesemhryanthemum 

 austraie, the " Austral Pig-face," strays here from the cliff, and 



