Vol.XXVIIl, 



1912 



1 Weindorfer, TJie Cradle Mountains, Tasmania. 219 



burned out some time before our arrival ; the other, that the 

 place was admirably centrally situated. 



With the early morning of the 4th work was begun in earnest, 

 and at 7 a.m. a start made for the roof of Tasmania. Taking 

 the somewhat steep ridge between Dove and Crater Lakes, 

 soon a real alpine flora presented itself on our way to higher 

 elevations. Over stones and rocks trail the graceful branches 

 of Microcachris tetragona, Podocarpiis alpina, and the straggling 

 Exocarpus humijusa, apparently used to any sort of weather 

 and temperature. In the shelter of rocks were sure to be 

 found the white-flowering Ozothamnus ledifolius and 0. Back- 

 housii, Richea acerosa, and everywhere the pink-flowering 

 Boronia rhomhoidea and B. pinnatifida, var. citriodora, and 

 Tetratheca pilosa. With the first steps on to the plateau, ex- 

 tending over to the crags of the mount, a marked change in 

 plant-life occurs, bushes almost entirely disappearing, and what 

 was there of them being rather more a convenient base for 

 mosses and lichens than for the purpose to preserve their own 

 species. Better fare in this locality those true children of our 

 alpine flora, which, on account of their pronounced liking for 

 cold climates, have in a geographical sense received the name of 

 glacial plants. Here, in these weather-worn surroundings, 

 never safe from frost, Ramincnlus Gunniamis displays to us its 

 red and yellow flowers, masses of the white-petalled Anemone 

 crassifolia look down upon their tiny neighbours of the lofty 

 heights, the composites Helichrysiim milligani and H. pumihmi, 

 Erigeron pappachroma, Raonlia planchani and R. Meredithce, 

 Gentiana saxosa, the little white-flowering Pentachandra 

 pumila, and Ahrotanella scapigera. The curious epacrid, 

 Dracophylliim mininmm, forming hard cushions through each 

 individual member closely adpressing to the other, most likely 

 in order to most effectually preserve the scanty supply of 

 warmth, is frequently met with. 



On we go, here and there halting to impress upon the memory 

 the characters of this new and interesting plant association, 

 or to study the general aspect of the distant wooded sur- 

 roundings or that of the cheerless heath over which we came 

 the day before, or the Dove Lake's shores beneath us, its blue 

 waters pleasantly relieving the sombre shadows of the sur- 

 rounding pine forests. Soon we arrive at the foot of the crags, 

 where, in their shelter, a little cluster of bushlets, so to speak, 

 forms the last outpost of a compound bush vegetation, their 

 wind and weather-defying members composed of Richea 

 scoparia (with their sharp-pointed leaves also man-defying), 

 Orites revoluta and 0. acicularis, Cyathodes straminea, Bceckea 

 Gunniana, our only deciduous beech, Fagus Gunnii, and Tetra- 

 carpcea Tasmamca,th.e whole in places over topped by Richea 



