AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION. 165 
approached through the hostility of the natives, where they will find 
the cooler and, at the same time, moist tropical climate congenial to 
their existence. But whatever may be the variety and wealth of the 
primitive Flora of East Australia, it is only by the active intelligence 
and exertions of man that the greatest riches can be wrought from the 
soil. Whatever plants he may choose to raise, whether costly spiced, 
luscious fruits, expensive dyes ; whether Cacao, Manihot, or other ali- 
mentary plants ; whether sugar, coffee, or any others of more extensive 
tropical tillage,— for all may be found wide tracts fitted for their new 
home. 
Ihe close access to harbours facilitates culture, while the expan- 
sive extent of geographical latitude on the east coast admits of choos- 
ing such spots as in each instance present the most favourable climatic 
conditions for the success of each special plantation. Beyond the 
coast ranges the country westward changes, with augmenting dryness, 
generally at once into more open pastoral ground. Basaltic downs 
and gentle verdant rises of eminent richness of herbage may alternately 
give way to Brigalow scrubs or sandstone plateaux, or porphyritic or 
granitic hills, and with the change of the geological formation a 
change, often very apparent, will take place also in the vegetation. 
■Inland we will lose sight of the glossy, dense, umbrageous foliage, 
which now only borders a generally low coast in the north, terminating 
there frequently in Mangroves. Stryclinos Nux-vomica occurs among 
the coast bushes here, and also an Antiaris (A. macrophylla) ; but 
whether the latter shares the deadly poison of the Upas-tree of Java 
ai *d Sumatra requires to be ascertained. Tamarindus Indica is known 
from Arnhem's Land, and the French Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) in a 
spontaneous state from the north-west coast. Eucalypts, again, form 
away from the sea the prevailing timber ; but with exception of the 
Jfed Gum-tree (Eucalyptus rostrata), which lines most of the rivers of 
whole of the Australian interior, the southern species are replaced 
ty others, never of gigantic growth, in some instances adorned with 
wlKani scarlet or crimson blossoms. But neither these nor many 
distinct kinds of northern Acacias and Melaleucas stamp on the coun- 
ty the expression of peculiarity. Familiar Australian forms usually 
surround us, though those of the cooler zone, and even the otherwise 
almost universal Seuecios, are generally absent. Cyperus vaginatus, 
Perhaps the best of all textile rushes, ranges from the remotest south 
the 
