1340 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED 



many of the sylvan landscapes of ours as far south as Tasmania, the more slender 

 Alsophila Australis occupying the slopes of valleys, the more robust but less lofty 

 Dicksonia Billardicri seeking the margins of brooks and rivulets ; yet the latter never 



approaching antartic regions as its 

 former specific name would imply. 



Quite endemic in Tasmania is 

 the Anodopctalum, popularly known 

 as the " Horizontal Bush," from which 

 a bewildered wanderer may find it 

 difficult to get disentangled, more so 

 even than from the Bartera Scrubs. 

 .Styphclia Oxyccdrus is often costal, 

 and still more beautiful when loaded 

 with the red fruit than when bearing 

 richly its white flowers. Here, as in 

 a few other insular positions of the 

 world, we find the Composites advance 

 to real tree-growth ; hence we obtain 

 the Musk-Aster {A. argophyllus), and 

 among Scnecios the Duke's-tree (S. 

 Bcdfordi}. These, however, extend 

 in the identical species to South- 

 eastern Australia, whereas in New 

 Zealand the arborescent features in 

 these two genera are not con-specific. 

 Exactly the same takes place as 

 regards the evergreen Beeches, the 

 three or four of New Zealand being 

 endemic ; but doubtless these all, as 

 well as the Fagus Mooret, at the 

 sources of the Clarence River, being, 

 like the Tasmanian and the 

 Victorian and the European 

 Beech, sustained in their 

 nourishment through most 

 delicate and peculiar fungus- 

 growth at the extremest 

 root-particles. The festoons 

 formed by Tctragonia ii- 

 plexicoma on the shores of 

 Tasmania, extend also along 

 the whole south coast of 



Australia, the leaves serving like those of T. expansa, indigenous here, and known as 

 " New Zealand Spinage." The Button-Rush (Schcenus spluerocephalus) forms large tussocks 



CHRISTMAS BELLS (Blandfordia Nobilis). 



