182 AUSTRALIA 



Some forms of what is here included under Mutea are 

 not entirely without economic use. They may serve as 

 grazing grounds during the rainy years, but the fluc- 

 tuations of the precipitation render their pasturage 

 precarious and temporary. 



Great Central Desert. This covers the largest part 

 of the western tableland and portions of the central 

 lowland, and is split into a number of minor areas like 

 the Great Sandy Desert, the Gibson Desert, the Victoria 

 Desert, and others. Beyond the fact that it contains no 

 grass other than solitary tufts of triodia and spinifex 

 and, occasionally, shrubs of acacia and casuarlna which 

 correspond to the gum acacias and the tamarisks of the 

 Sahara, little is known of its specific vegetation. It has 

 no oases, properly speaking, but only approximations to 

 them in the shape of patches of Mulga. However, there 

 is a ' Glen of Palms ' on the north slope of Macdonnell 

 Range. 



Murray-Darling Valley and South Australia. At 

 the back of the south-eastern highlands the plains are 

 clothed with a grass-land of a warm temperate type, 

 the surface of which is sprinkled over with trees and 

 shrubs — a park landscape resembling some formations 

 of southern Rhodesia or of southern Brazil and 

 Uruguay. A similar park grass -land of a warm 

 temperate stamp existed at one time along the coast 

 of South Australia, but it has been largely transformed 

 for agricultural purposes. 



Here again eucalyptus, acacias, mimosas, and other 

 brightly flowering trees and shrubs compose the higher 

 vegetation, while among the short grasses are inter- 

 spersed a large number of beautiful herbs, which burst 

 into flower at the beginning of the rainy season in 

 winter : the summer is parched and scorching. One 



