BEACH PLANTS 6i 



ornaments of the beach is so truly displayed that it 

 might be Hkened 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, j^ellow 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 kmiigii), with its strange 

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

 plant are said to be emetic. 



Two varieties of Viiex 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 



