Naturalisation in Extra-Tropical Countries. 65 



to recover from this Distoma-disease and other allied ailments. Mr. 

 Edward Garwood Alston, of Van Wyks Vlei estate in Carnarvon, 

 aided by Mr. Henry Sandford, of Graaff-Reinet, and President Reitz, 

 of the Orange Free State, has had immense success with A. nummu- 

 larium and A. halimoides in South- Africa as far as the Transvaal, 

 the origin of the introduction also there having been through the 

 writer of these pages, by the kind offices of Professor MacOwan. 

 Mr. Alston contrasts the advantages of these two species with those 

 of A. Halimus, as available there naturally. They are less saline, 

 hence preferred by pasture-animals. They produce seeds much more 

 copiously and through 9 months they afford a larger food-supply in 

 a given time and the ease with which they can be raised. Even pigs 

 and fowls are fond of these salt-bushes. The withered leaves and 

 seeds afford a natural mulching and they are less particular in the 

 choice of soil than A. Halimus. 



Atriplex semibaccatum, R. Brown. 



Extra-tropic Australia. A perennial herb, very much liked by 

 sheep [R. H. Andrews], thus considered among the best of saline 

 herbage of the salt-bush country. Mr. Will. Farrer pronounces 

 this herb as wonderful for its productiveness and its drought-resisting 

 power. Professor Hilgard writes that in the Tulare-district, Cali- 

 fornia, where the soil contains 2 per cent, alkali, this plant grew to 

 a height of 8 feet. He knows no other plant that does so well on the 

 same soil. 



Atriplex spongiosum, F. v. Mueller.* 



Through a great part of Central Australia, extending to the 

 South- and West-coast. Available, like the preceding and several 

 other species, for salt-bush culture of particular nutritiveness as 

 pasture-fodder, but herbaceous. Unquestionably some of the shrubby 

 extra-Australian species, particularly those of the Siberian and Cali- 

 fornian steppes, could also be transferred advantageously to subsaline 

 country elsewhere, to increase its value, particularly for sheep- 

 pasture. 



Atriplex stipitatum, Bentham. 



Interior of South-Eastern Australia. Considered a good kind 

 among dwarf salt-bushes for pastoral purposes [Duncan Love]. 

 A. velutinellum (F. v. M.), of South Australia and New South Wales, 

 is another valuable species, according to Mr. F. Turner. Mr. W. A. 

 Dixon found 92 per cent, of digestible substances in the allied A. 

 angulatum. 



Atriplex vesicarium, Howard.* 



In the interior of South-Eastern and in Central Australia. One of 

 the most fattening and most relished of all the dwarf pastoral salt- 

 bushes of Australia, holding out in the utmost extremes of drought, 



