Aug.,] 

 1914 J 



Kelly, Plant Distribution in the Healesville District. 59 



the earth, meeting side-blown rains with an almost unbroken 

 front and a vertical downpour with a fully graduated series 

 of steps from which the heaviest storm-waters can only drip 

 to the lowest stratum. 



The trees forming the lower division of the upper story and 

 graduating to the second story consist mainly of Sassafras, 

 Atherospermum moschatum. Myrtle Beech, Fagus Cunninghami, 

 and the rarer Native Olive, Notelcea ligustrina, which are 

 restricted to the highest gullies and sources of streams. The 

 Blackwood, Acacia melanoxylon, and Silver Wattle, A. dealbata, 

 are found in company with the former three, but are not 

 similarly restricted. They descend to the lowest flats of the 

 area and beyond it, as also does the Sweet Bursaria, Bursaria 

 spinosa. Hedycarya Cunninghami, Pomaderris apetala, Senecio 

 Bedfordii, Prostanthera lasiantha, and Coprosma Billardieri 

 occupy both the high position and follow the rivers to lower 

 levels. Coprosma hirtella favours higher gullies and rocky 

 hillsides. 



The Lomatias, L. Fraseri and L. longifolia, are denizens of 

 the highest gullies, but the former disperses laterally to the 

 hillsides ; the latter goes downward with the streams. L. ilici- 

 folia occupies drier sites on the hillside, and is more shrubby 

 and prostrate. Myrsine variabilis is an occasional shrub, 

 almost solitary as a species, but associated with other genera 

 in its incidental occurrence from the heights down the river 

 bank. Banksia Collina is endemic on low ranges towards the 

 head of the Chum Creek and on the stony ranges near the 

 Yarra towards Lauching Place, the extreme north and south 

 of the area. In the Chum Creek habitat it is associated with 

 the endemic Grevillea repens and Oxylobium procumbens — 

 plants of the ground floor. Pittosponim bicolor is an occasional 

 shrub found mainly on Myers Creek, Condon's Gully, Mathinna 

 Falls, and upper gullies and stream sources of the water 

 reserve. 



In these ranges are several kinds of acacias. On the highest 

 tops, notably Mount St. Leonard and Mount Juliet, is the 

 distinct Acacia penninervis — never found on the lower levels, 

 and rarely on the lesser heights. As a genus Acacia is 

 ubiquitous, its species varying from the highest mountain tops 

 to the plains beyond. The principal mountain gully kinds 

 are A . melanoxylon, A . dealbata, trees ; A . leprosa, A . stricta, 

 A . verticillata, A . linearis, and A . oxycedrus, shrubs ; but these, 

 with many other species, are found also at lower levels. One 

 isolated patch of A. vomeriformis appears on the hillside at 

 the south of the town, but this is fast disappearing, and the 

 individual plants degenerating. Acacia juniperina grows in 

 two places — along Chum Creek road and on the upper road- 



