BOTTLE-TREE AND NETTLES 263 



Our second day's journey brought us to a well-grassed 

 country, which seemed admirably suited for a cattle-run, 

 but was at present a back-run in the joint occupation of 

 several stockmen, who had together about eight thousand 

 head of cattle upon it. Beyond this point no man of our 

 party knew the country. 



During our two days' ride I noticed several trees 

 common on the other side of the continent, which varied 

 curiously here. The grass-tree, for instance, has a still 

 more singular appearance than it has on the west side. 

 It is here without the long central stick, but has instead 

 a curious matted mass under the grass tuft, and from a 

 short distance looks just like the enormously gigantic head 

 of a blackfellow stuck on a post. The appearance is really 

 sometimes quite startling. 



Then the gouty-stem tree in this district, though still 

 greatly swollen, has a symmetrical shape, looking like a 

 huge beer-bottle with a plant stuck in the neck. It is 

 called by the colonists the bottle-tree, and is clearly a 

 distinct species from the common gouty-stem. 



In sheltered gullies, and sometimes in ravines on the 

 hillsides, I found the fruit called the native plum, and 

 also the native cherry (Exocarpus cupressiformis), and 

 several other fruits and nuts which are largely used by the 

 natives for food. 



Among the most prominent trees I noted fine speci- 

 mens of the iron-bark {Eucalyptus resinifera), on which 

 the fig-tree is often a parasite. These were sometimes 

 a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty feet high, 

 and twenty-five or twenty-six in girth. 



We passed, too, several nettle-scrubs, in which the 

 nettles were seventeen or eighteen feet high, with leaves 

 the size of large fans ; and though ferns were not so 

 numerous as on ground nearer the coast, there were 

 some fine displays in the gullies, the fronds of many 

 kinds being exceedingly delicate and lace-like, and of 

 most beautiful tints. These fern-gullies are favourite 

 resorts of a multitude of small birds, and also of 

 parrots and cockatoos, and have unpleasant inhabitants 



