62 The South Australian Naturalist. 



feast on the nuts. The so-called red cedar (Cedrela australis) 

 of Queensland is another valuable timber tree. The Harpe- 

 phyllum caffrum is one of the handsomest of South African 

 forest trees. Other useful plants may be enumerated : the 

 wine palm, from which a very palatable beverage may be 

 obtained; the cunjevoi, from the rhizomes of which a sort of 

 taro is obtained. The sisal hemp is worthy of special mention. 

 It is devoid of lateral spines, but the terminal thorn is used by 

 the Mexicans as a needle, and the fibres supply the thread, so 

 that they have their needle ready to hand and threaded. Tough 

 mats and cordage are made from the fibres of this useful plant. 

 The cabbage plant of Eastern Australia supplied the material 

 for the bushman's headgear, and the young white folded leaves 

 were no bad substitute for cabbage. Among ornamental trees 

 one of the Japanese flowering plum (Prunus mumme) is con- 

 spicuous for its glorious double pink blossoms and coloured 

 leaves. The Wheel of Fire tree has flame-coloured flowers 

 arranged in quaint whorls. The tree daisy (Brachylaena den- 

 tata) is remarkable as being one of the few Compositae that 

 attain to the dimension of a tree. The verbena famil}^ is also 

 represented by fairly large-grow4ng trees, a species of 

 Vitex or Lignum Vitae, and a Clerodendron. Several interest- 

 ing shrubs are also included ; for example, the citron-scented 

 3^erbena, Duranta and Vitex littoralis of New Zealand. Other 

 plants are remarkable for their quaint departures from the 

 normal type. The butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus) has 

 its flowers s})ringing from the leaves. The bottle brush (Cal- 

 listemon speciosus) retains for many years the fruit, which 

 may be observed on various parts of the main stem and of the 

 branches. The sandpaper tree (Picus aspera), the rough 

 leaves of which were used by the aborigines as sandpaper to 

 smooth their weapons, was duly tested. 



Excursion to Eden, July 8, 1922. — On Saturday afternoon, 

 July 8, Mr. A. G. Edquist led a party of members to Eden to 

 study the remarkable physiographical features to the west of 

 the railway station. An outcrop of rock was pointed out, and 

 its general strike or the direction in which the rock appeared 

 in line was shown to be about north and south. The slope or 

 dip, the angle at which the layers of rock projected from the 

 ground, in this instance was almost vertical, with a dip towards 

 the west. The leader explained that these particular rocks, 

 which were about half a mile thick in this neighbourhood, 

 were classed with the oldest known, and their age was calcu- 

 lated in millions of years ; opinions vary as to whether they are 

 about 100 or up to 1,000 million years old. The age to which 



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