Cunningham’s Gap is a passage way through the Dividing Range, making a 
direct route between Brisbane and Warwick. On the south side of the Gap is 
pyramid-shaped Mt. Mitchell, and on the northern side is Mt. Cordeaux tow- 
ering 4,000 feet skywards. The lower slopes of these mountains are covered with 
a dense scrub through which great trees push their way sunwards. Almost every 
tree has its upper portion shrouded with great clumps of Dendrobium speciosum. 
At the time of my visit (September) these were all in flower, and the long sprays 
of cream coloured blossoms with here and there one of the rarer white variety 
(Hillii) made a charming sight upon which one’s eyes never tired of feasting. On 
the trunks of the box trees, and occasionally on the pines and oaks, were clumps 
of dainty Dendrobium aemulum. Further up the slopes were clumps of the snow 
white Sarcochilus falcatus which gleamed when the furtive rays of the sun stole 
through the leafy mantle and kissed their white petals. But right on the rocky 
cliffs at the head of the mount was the crowning glory of all. Great masses of 
Dendrobium Kingianum there were, with numberless blooms running the whole 
gamut of colour from pale lilac to a deep purple which would have mocked the robes 
of an Emperor, and with a fragrance like the incense from an old Cathedral. One 
almost listened to hear a voice proclaim ‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” 
I remember, too, a ramble I made a few months ago to a part of the Lam- 
ington Plateau down beyond Tambourine. A small party of us descended to the 
bottom of what is known as the Black Gorge—a fascinating place which would 
not fail to touch the imagination of anyone with a trace of the romantic in his 
make-up. In little grottos here and there in the course of the descent were rills 
and tiny waterfalls dropping a few feet in gradual descent before they took their 
final plunge over the edge of the gorge to the black depths many hundreds of feet 
beneath. Most of these grottos were quite damp, although the sun shone into 
them, and in nearly all of them were clumps of Sarcochilus Fitzgeraldii in bloom. 
But it was when we reached the bottom of the gorge itself that I had my greatest 
thrill. A tree had fallen athwart the stream which rushes down through the 
gorge to swell the Albert River. By chance the place that it spanned was one of 
the few places in the depths of the gorge that the sun’s light could reach. The 
log was covered with the finest specimens of Fitzgeraldii that I have ever seen. 
The growths were up to eighteen inches high and mostly had long sprays of 
flowers. I measured one or two of the individual blooms and found them to be 
very nearly an inch and a half in diameter. I may say that it took a supreme 
effort on my part to refrain from breaking my promise not to remove plants 
from the National Park area! 
Another Orchid which is little esteemed by us is that rather odorous flower 
Liparis reflexa, but I remember seeing a cliff face near the top of Wilson’s Peak 
down on the New South Wales border which was simply a mass of the honey 
coloured blooms. Coming suddenly upon the vision it was quite a charming sight, 
worthy of being treasured in the memory gallery of things of beauty. 
On another occasion after breaking through a belt of thick undergrowth 
into more open forest country, I became aware of a sweet perfume; looking round 
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