JUNE 



97 



the spinebills seemed perfectly satisfied with them, for they 

 darted among them everywhere with sharp, clapping wings, 

 dipping their slender bills deep into the tubular blossoms. 



Another quaint flower I found among the rocks was 

 chloanthes ; it has no other name. Its crinkly leaves give it a 

 mossy look, and form a soft, subdued background for the queer 

 little pale green, bell-shaped flowers. As I stooped to pick it 

 a glimpse of pale mauve caught my eye, and I gasped with 

 astonishment. An orchid, a caladenia surely here was the 

 spring I was seeking! But on making towards it I found it 

 was no orchid, but only a washed-out snake-flower, which fell 

 from its stalk at my touch. "Scaevola hispida" is the name 

 botanists give it, but we always knew it as snake-flower when 

 we were children, and there was a tradition amongst us that 

 to eat the blossom was a certain antidote to snakebite. 



Leaving the tangle of undergrowth behind me I passed on 

 and came out on the brink of a rocky precipice which over- 

 looked the junction of two deep gorges ; down beyond gleamed 

 the blue waters of Middle Harbour; round about me grew 

 thickly a tall needlebush, covered with tiny cream blossoms ; 

 it is the needlebush which has the smallest of flowers, yet its 

 seeds are about the largest; tangled in amongst the needle- 

 bush, and spreading out over the rocks, the white shafts of 

 the heath-like lysinema climbed to a prodigious height, some 

 spikes being three to four feet tall. It was a lovely picture, 

 the grey rocks and pale flowers, lit by the afternoon sun, and 



