IN IDLE MOMENT 25 



"secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed in glycerine 

 the preservative takes the hue of the flower. Nature 

 having ordained that the plants should be elusive, they 

 appear in remote spots and unlikely situations with 

 foothold among loose and gritty fragments of rock, 

 and with cessation of the sustaining rains disappear, 

 each having borne but a single leaf and produced but 

 a solitary flower. The leaf does not seem to be attrac- 

 tive to insects, nor is the flower despoiled or the tuber 

 interfered with. The first dry day sears the plants, 

 and succeeding days shrivel them to dust and they 

 vanish. What part in the great scheme of Nature does 

 the humble flower fulfil ? Or is it merely a lowly 

 decoration, not designed to court the ardent gaze of 

 the sun, but to brighten an other\\dse bare space of 

 Mother Earth with a spot of fugitive purple ? 



Widel}^ different are the ant-house plants, of which 

 North Queensland has two genera. One is purely an 

 epiphyte, growing attached to a tree like many of the 

 orchids. In both genera the gouty stems are hollow, 

 a feature of which ants take advantage ; they are merely 

 occupiers, not the makers of their homes. Few, if any, 

 of the plants are uninhabited by a resentful swarm, 

 ready to attack whomsoever may presume to interfere 

 with it. It is discomposing to the uninitiated to find 

 the curious "orchid," laboriously wrenched from a tree, 

 overflowing with stinging and pungent ants, nor is he 

 likely to reflect that the association between the plant 

 and the insect may be more than accidental. 



Some of the commonest wattles exhibit singularity 

 of foliage well worth notice. Upon the germination of 

 the seeds the primary leaves are pinnate. After a brief 

 period this pretty foliage is succeeded by a boomerang- 

 shaped growth, which prevails during life. Botanists 

 do not speak of such trees as possessing leaves, but 



