A'. II'IIY OF AUSTRALASIA. 



1333 



lu -ins at the western extremity of the Great Bight at all events, as regards the 

 generality of low-land plants. This vegetation consists of species able to sustain vigour 

 in a clime of extreme summer heat and 

 very scant)' rains. Though in its consti- 

 tution much varied, physiognomically the 

 vegetation is monotonous. Large trees are 

 missing over wide tracts of the country, 

 unless the Red Gum-tree {Eucalyptus ros- 

 trata], which affords an almost imperish- 

 able timber, indicates by interrupted lines 

 the direction of some water-course, not flow- 

 ing, perhaps, for years. From eminences 

 seldom lofty, the traveller may glance in 

 many places over a "sea of scrub," in which 

 the dwarf Mallee-Eucalypts probably pre- 

 dominate, or which may be formed by a 

 gayer assembly of phyllodinous and often 

 pungent Acacias, highly ornamental Ere- 

 niophilas, often interspersed with sticky 

 Dodonceas, small-flowered Asters, fragrant 

 Cassias, and woody Salsolacea, the latter as 

 "salt-bushes," affording, particularly in some 

 of the species of A triplex and Koc/u'a, the 

 best nutriment for flocks in these regions; 

 indeed, A triplex nuinnnilaria, and particu- 

 larly A. kalimoidcs and A. vcsicaria, may 

 through wide stretches of country be the 

 main occupants of the ground, unaffected even by the 

 occasional aerial wafts. The Australian salt-bushes num- 

 ber more than a hundred kinds. The total absence of 

 Orckidece in the dry steppes is noteworthy as a most 

 surprising fact, though on the meadows towards the 

 south these lovely plants are again of frequency. It is 

 in the dry country, where the angiantheous herbs, 

 although seldom tall, often annual, and perhaps of no 

 rural significance, contribute so much by their thousand- 

 fold, or even million-fold, growth in some species, to the 

 yellow tint of the vernal vegetation in moist or favour- 

 able seasons. 



It may also now be aptly noted that the Wild 

 Stramony occasionally accompanies the much more widely 

 dispersed native Tobacco, while another Solanaceous 

 shrub, the " Pitchery " (Dnboisia Hopwoodil) promotes 

 tribal intercourse, inasmuch as the native warriors THE IUANKI.I.A TASMAMCA. 



