THE BOTANY OF IRVINEBANK AND ITS 
IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
By F. BENNETT. 
Read before the Royal Society of Queenslaud, 19th November, 1904. 
BEARING in mind the latitude, the elevation, the mineral 
nature of the rocks, and the heavy tropical wet season, 
the botanist can guess the effect on the vegetation of the 
place. 
The country as a whole is rugged and mountainous. 
There is little good soil, except in the clefts and hollows on 
the hill sides. Even the flats along the creeks have a sub- 
stratum of weathered and water worn stones and pebbles. 
From December to May, owing to the heavy wet season, 
vegetation thrives especially where any soil is found, but 
with the cessation of the rains and the approach of winter 
with a subsequent 3 months of hot, dry weather, the herbage 
and grass die off and the hare, brown rocky hills have little 
about them picturesque or beautiful. The lush grass forced 
by the wet season is deficient in solid nutriment or fattening 
quahties and when dead and dry does not offer through the 
winter that sustenance afforded to stock in West Queens- 
land by the drvest of dead grass and herbage. This with the 
rocky nature of the land makes it no place for the farmer or 
the squatter. 
The vegetation is not so tropical as the latitude might 
lead one to suppose. This elevated and rocky region does 
not favour the growth of the screw pines so common on north- 
ern waiters, nor are there the thick scrubs, palms, ferns, orchids, 
climbers, and epiphytes of the coastal ranges. The local 
flora presents in no respect a tropical appearance. 
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