BEACH PLANTS 61 



ornaments of the beach is so truly displayed that it 

 might be likened to the tree of the sun described by 

 Marco Polo green on one side, but white when perceived 

 on the other. 



This quality, however, is not special or peculiar. 

 The brown kurrajong (Commersonia echinata] exhibits 

 it even more conspicuously, and, when the dusty white 

 flowers displayed in almost horizontal planes are 

 buffeted by the winds and the white undersides of the 

 leaves are revealed, the whole style of the tree is trans- 

 formed as a demure damsel is by tempestuous petticoats. 



With the grey-green of the Sophora is often inter- 

 twined the leafless creeper Cassytha filiformis, which 

 in the days of the past the blacks were wont to 

 use with other beach plants in the composition of a 

 crude seine net. The long-reaching, white-flowered 

 Clerodendron inerme and the tough, sprawling Blain- 

 villea latifolia, with its small, harsh flowers, yellow as 

 buttercups but resembling a daisy in form, were also 

 embodied in the net. 



The Poonga oil-tree, the new and old leaves the 

 colour of new copper, and the mature the darkest of 

 green, bears spikes of pale lavender flowers, and makes 

 a decided blotch among the light green succulent leaves 

 of the native cabbage (Sccevola kfr-nigii), with its strange 

 white flowers and milk-white fruit. All parts of the 

 plant are said to be emetic. 



Two varieties of Vitex trifolia, each bearing pretty 

 lavender flowers, but in other respects sharply con- 

 trasted, are among the commonest of denizens of the 

 beach. The one is a prostrate plant with sage-coloured 

 and sage-scented leaves; the other a shrub or small 

 tree with light green foliage, the underside of which 

 is mealy- white, and flowers paler than those of its lowly 

 kin. Each is pretty, and the creeping variety (known 



