FcIj., 1910.] THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 151 



THROUGH THE BRISBANE RANGE. 



By J. G. O'DoNOGHUE and P. R. H. St. John. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 11th Jan., 1910.) 



In daytime, as the train traverses the broad expanse of treeless 

 plain between Melbourne and Bacchus Marsh, the traveller is 

 afiforded, at many points, a distant glimpse, away to the south- 

 west, of the long, low, undulating bulk of the Brisbane Range. 

 A much nearer view is obtained as the labouring engines, in 

 negotiating the steep gradient leading from Bacchus Marsh to 

 the basaltic table-land separating the Werribee and Parwan valleys, 

 cross the high pile-bridge near the Rowsley State school. 

 Transient though the view may be, it suffices to demonstrate that 

 the range rises abruptly from a level plain, and that it presents a 

 somewhat monotonous contour. Situated almost in the middle 

 of the triangle formed by Melbourne, Geelong, and Ballarat, and 

 though fairly accessible, the Brisbane Range is unknown even by 

 name to the majority of people. Some folk can claim a nodding 

 acquaintance with it, and others a more familiar knowledge. 

 Margined by large estates, particularly on the seaward slopes, 

 consisting for the greater part of inferior pastoral country, 

 presenting no physical features calculated to excite the curiosity 

 of the sight-seer, and not being in the line of direct communica- 

 tion between townships of any importance, the range is seldom 

 traversed. Within the past four years I have crossed it on at 

 least ten occasions, at various hours of the day and night, and 

 once only was a wayfarer encountered. 



From remarks made respecting the varied vegetation to be met 

 with in this elevated tract of country, my fellow-member, Mr. P. 

 R. H. St. John, expressed a desire to visit it on a botanizing 

 expedition, so arrangements towards the realization of this 

 aspiration were soon made, and, despite the Government Meteor- 

 ologist's forecast of rain and high winds from the north-west, we 

 left Melbourne by the 7.40 a.m. train for Bacchus Marsh on 

 Friday, ist October, on a tour of three days' duration. 



The morning was an ideal one, and as the train steamed across 

 the plain to our destination, the profusion of wild flowers in the 

 railway reserve engendered an expectation of a generous harvest 

 on the range, which at Deer Park showed up prominently to the 

 south-west. Bacchus Marsh was reached at 9 a.m., and five 

 minutes later, with burdened shoulders, we were shaping a course 

 for the Rowsley pile-bridge. 



Our route lay over land timbered with the Grey and Yellow Box 

 — Eucalyptus heiniphloia and E. melUodora — with the She-oak, 

 Casuarhia stricta, and profusely carpeted with native and exotic 

 plants by reason of one of the most favourable seasons known 

 locally for years. Among other flowers noticed Microseris 

 Forsteri, Diuris maculata, Glossodia major, Hyjjoxis glabella, 



