57 



we passed a comfortable night, sleeping on a bed of tea-tree 

 branches, with our feet towards the blaze, and only waking 

 when the diminished heat warned some one of us to put on more 

 wood. The coldest part of the night was— to use the words 

 of a well-known song — " 2 o'clock in the morning,'' owing 

 partly, I suppose, to the fire having died down at about that 

 hour. 



We started very early next morning in a direction nearly 

 due south, in order to skirt a rocky gully, the hidden source of 

 Dale Brook, and then crossed a plain in a south-easterly 

 direction. On our way we passed through a large quantity of 

 the mountain Bellendena (B. montana), a handsome glaucons- 

 leaved small shrub, with pointed spikes of cream-colored 

 flowers, followed by reddish-brown pods, — an alpine form 

 of that very graceful branched fern, GleicTienia dicarpa, — ■ 

 the pretty and rare Eurylia abcordota, only found on the 

 Tasmanian mountains, with its wedge-shaped leaves, toothed 

 at the apex, and daisy-like flowers, — the bright " green 

 cushions," bespangled with the disproportionately large 

 berries of the tiny Pernettya Tasmanica, a plant of the heath 

 tribe, found only on the mountains of Tasmania, — and the 

 beautiful little Gaidtheria antipoda, not found anywhere else 

 in Australia, but occurring on lofty mountains of the Middle 

 Island, New Zealand, — the cider- tree {Eucahjpus Gunnii), — 

 and many other rare and interesting plants. On the plain 

 just mentioned we found a small group of the cypress-like 

 *• mountain pines" (Athrotajcis cupressoides), with a ragged 

 and broken-down appearance. Shortly after passing them 

 we began to ascend the western end of the Ironstone Moun- 

 tain range, and came upon a kind of saddle between the trigo- 

 nometrical station and " West Bastion Bluff." Here we 

 found that curious little coniferous plant, Microcachrys 

 tetragona, lying, here and there, perfectly flat on green- 

 stone rocks, whose surfaces were nearly level with the ground ; 

 and then, keeping too much to the left, we passed through 

 or over an underwood of a dwarf pine, about four feet high, — 

 which attains to the height of ten feet in very sheltered 

 situations — called Diselma Archeri, with many straggling 

 branches so close to the ground, that if one put one's foot 

 between instead of on them, one's progress became slow and 

 exceedingly laborious. My friend, who did not succeed well 

 in making his way through them, on coming up to me, 

 botanising while waiting for him, requested me particularly 

 to tell him the name of the plant, " in order," as he said, 

 *' that he might hate it all his life." 



Looking from the top of West Bastion Bluff we saw Lake 

 Lucy Long— a somewhat appropriate name— extending in a 



