BEACH PLANTS 



" Remove the vegetable kingdom, or interrupt the flow of its 

 unconscious benefactions, and the whole higher life of the world 

 ends." — Henry Drummond. 



Strolling on the curving footway of broken shells 

 and coral chips marking the limit of the morning's 

 tide, a vague attempt was made to catalogue the plants 

 which crowd each other on the verge of salt water, 

 and so to make comparison with that part of Australia 

 the features of which provoked Adam Lindsay Gordon 

 to frame an adhesive phrase concerning bright scent- 

 less blossoms and songless, bright birds. Excluding 

 the acacias and eucalypts, said to have given sameness 

 to the scenes among which the exotic poet ranged, a 

 long list might be compiled; nor will the pleasant 

 sounds of the afternoon be set down in formal order 

 to the vexing of his memory, for possibly he never 

 heard the whoop and gurgle of the swamp pheasant 

 or the blended voices of hundreds of nutmeg pigeons 

 mellowed by half a mile of still, warm air. 



Nor may such unassuming vegetation as the grasses 

 — at least a dozen varieties — find place in an enumera- 

 tion which appeals primarily on the grounds of promi- 

 nence, though it would not do to despise the soft and 

 pleasant carpet beneath the orderly row of Casuarinas 

 which the tide planted during the last big cyclone with 

 gardener's art. The common name for the trees — 



55 



