>fov., 1909.1 I'ttK VICTORIAN NATUKALlS'l. 80 



happens to flourish on the surface of gold-bearing country. If 

 you want to see Golden Wattles in their prime, visit the You 

 Yangs some balmy spring day in September, climb up one of the 

 granite piles among shapely She-oaks and stunted Blue Gums, 

 past bushes entwined with clematis crowded with cream coloured 

 star-like flowers, with here and there a purple sarsaparilla, 

 Kennedya inonophylla, trailing on the rocks, to liie summit, and 

 see below a landscape indescribable for beauty on account of its 

 billows of yellow bloom set in a sea of green foliage resulting 

 from the wealth of Golden Wattles growing in the adjacent 

 forest reserve. 



My earliest recollections, as a child, of Golden Wattle are of the 

 nodding yellow plumes, which seemed to beckon me, borne by 

 slender saplings that grew in the dear old box forest at the foot of 

 Mt. Cotterell, not far from the present Rockbank railway station. 

 No part of the country within the same distance of Melbourne 

 has changed so little since that day as the Pinkerton Forest, as 

 it is locally called. Eight-and-forty years have passed since I 

 saw the last grave closed in that sacred, secluded spot, " the 

 Forest of the F'ive Graves," where loving hands have since planted 

 a group of wattles, which at this moment are beautiful by reason 

 of their blossomy balls of yellow. 



A great and grand tree which lowers proudly erect beside 

 other tall timber in the mountain gullies of Gippsland and Tas- 

 mania is the Blackwood Wattle, Acacia melanoxijlon. From 

 Blackwood boards beautiful furniture is made, while the so-called 

 '' fiddle-back " (really a twist in the nature of the tree caused by 

 stress or storm), when subjected to the polisher's skill, is among 

 the handsomest of cabinet woods. The blossoms of the Black- 

 wood are neither so conspicuous in colour nor in character as 

 those of many other wattles, being somewhat small, of a pale 

 lemon or yellowish-white colour, but their aroma pleasantly per- 

 fumes the forest when the frankincense of the sassafras is done. 

 For photographic effect one must choose sa|)lings, when flowers 

 and foliage, infant-like, are fair and plump. In the year 1898 

 there was a fine display of young Blackvvoods in bloom at the 

 upper end of the Wernbee Gorge, where the whole river bend 

 was full of trees apparently more crowded with blooms than leaves. 

 Such a sight is rare to behold. 



In the tea-tree groves by the sea-sliore, in sunny glade and in 

 shadowy scrub alike, the Coastal Wattle, Acacia longijolia, runs 

 riot in bushes sometimes erect, but as often spreading over the 

 sandy soil, and aflare with lengthened spur-like, rich lemon- 

 yellow flowers, and in such abundance that every little sandy 

 hollow near seems to hold the strongly diffused perfume. This 

 species may be said to most enthusiastically celebrate "Yellow- 

 haired September." The finest brakes of this sea-side wattle, 



