2i6 Weindorfer, The Cradle Mountains, Tasmania. [^"^a rU^' 



TWO BOTANISTS IN THE CRADLE MOUNTAINS, 

 TASMANIA. 



By G. Weindorfer. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 12th Feb., 191 2.) 

 In January, 1909, I had the great pleasure to visit, in company 

 with my friend, Dr. C. S. Sutton, for the first time the Cradle 

 Mountains, which appeared to me then a veritable flower 

 garden, a true Eldorado for the botanist, and a magnificent 

 place for the tourist who is content to sleep on the hard ground 

 with canvas over him or in one of the fairly numerous hunters' 

 huts. 



My vivid description of that trip to my wife, also a botanist, 

 had the effect that both of us, with another admirer of nature, 

 Mr. Ronald Smith, set out on the 28th December, 1909, via 

 Wilmot, on the road to Middlesex, where we arrived the same 

 day at 7.40 p.m., welcomed by the station manager and his 

 wife. The Cradle Mountains, it may be mentioned, are situated 

 in the north-west corner of the central basaltic area of Tas- 

 mania, and lie about 50 miles due south of Burnie, or the same 

 distance south-west of Devonport. 



Already, on nearing the plains, the " Ahs ! " and " Ohs ! " 

 over the numerous new finds, among which I wish to 

 refer in particular to the Mountain Rocket, Bellendena 

 montana, found no end, and reiterated again and again 

 far up to the snow-fields, their echoes seeming to linger 

 even around the dried specimens. The transition from 

 the lowland to the highland flora is, of course, not abrupt, and 

 both of them seem to fraternize in a most neighbourly fashion 

 all over the wide, grassy plains of Middlesex (about 2,500 feet). 

 There we can see, in the grassy sward composed of Deyeuxia 

 quadriseta and D. forsteri, Poa caspitosa, Agropyrum scabrum 

 and A. pectinatuni, Pentapogon Billardieri, Anthoxanthum 

 odovatum, Deshauyssia ccBspitosa, Echinopogon ovatus, Trisetum 

 subspicatum, Microlana stipoides, and Danthonia pauciflora, 

 the yellow-flowering Craspedia Richea, the everlasting Heli- 

 chrysum bracteatum and H. scorpioides, Helipteriim incanum 

 and H. anthemoides, Brachycome scapiformis, Cehnisia longi- 

 folia, and Ranunculus hirtus. Everywhere show the pink 

 flowers of Trachymene himiilis through the sheltering grass, 

 and the banks of the numerous little streams appear to be 

 mostly favoured by the presence of little bushes of Richea 

 Sprengelioides, Epacris lanuginosa, and Sprengelia incarnata. 

 Patches of Gunnera cordifolia are not advisable to be stepped 

 upon, for their inveterate liking for boggy places, which in most 

 cases are also preferred by Astelia alpina. Numerous blocks 

 of stone, weather-worn and covered with lichens, are at their 



