FERNSHAW FLOWERS 89 



the old country ; but the huge trees that rise abruptly from 

 the environs of many of the houses are quite unlike any- 

 thing English. European flowers crowd the gardens of 

 the cottages ; and the seeds of many of these have flown 

 into the forest, or been carried thither by birds, and found 

 a suitable soil in which they have rooted and prospered. 

 Pansies, sweetwilliams, fuchsias, evening-primroses, and 

 others which are certainly not indigenous to the country, 

 have been found at spots which, so far as I know, are at 

 least twenty miles distant from the nearest houses. Some 

 of these flowers are slightly changed, especially in colour, 

 from their natural characteristics, and some are much 

 developed and improved by the change of habitation. 



The wonders of the native flora found in the Fernshaw 

 forests, and in the country for many miles around, cannot 

 be here described. Remarkable form is strongly con- 

 trasted by brilliancy of colour in almost every genus of 

 plants found here. Wattle-trees, perhaps, attain the 

 perfection of their development, filling the air with their 

 delicious scent, while the eye is gratified by sight of 

 immense trailing masses of the Tecoma australis, a large 

 trumpet-shaped flower, which climbs the trunks of the 

 gum-trees to a great height, and hangs in graceful festoons 

 between the huge trunks. Other climbers show clusters of 

 curious bell-shaped yellow flowers {Billardiceas, I think), 

 and others a bright-blue blossom. The colours of all the 

 flowers are as remarkable for great brilliance as are those 

 of the birds which harbour in these giant forests. 



Palms are numerous ; and many of them, like the 

 mammals, are remarkable for abnormity of form, so much 

 so that no person, having ever seen them, could fail to, at 

 a glance, recognise an Australian palm ; but as the palms 

 of the north part of the continent are the most remarkable, 

 I will defer noticing the genus for the present. 



The lyre-bird is found in the forests about Fernshaw. 

 It was abundant twenty or thirty years ago, and, I think, 

 may still be pretty numerous in the interior of the woods ; 

 but, naturally a shy bird, it has been rendered very 

 cautious by continual persecution. 



