51 



A FEW EEMARKS ON THE DISTRIBUTION AND 

 GROWrH OF QUEENSLAND PLANTS. 



By F. M. Bailey, Botanist, Queensland Museum ; Corres- 

 ^ ponding Member, Eoyal Society, Tasmania. 



[Bead im Mmj, 1878.] 



The following notes on a few Queensland plants, I am in 

 liopes may not prove uninteresting to some Members of the 

 Society. Some of our trees, &c., are met with far away from 

 what would be supposed their habitat, and not, so ^ir as 

 known, on intermediate country. Others again, which have 

 always been supposed to have been introduced by cultivation 

 are met with at so great a distance from where cultivation is 

 being carried on as to make one think that mode of introduc- 

 tion impossible. Again the soil and situation in which we 

 find a tree growing, are at times so very different that it 

 would lead one to suppose them planted in these situations by 

 the erring hands of man, and not by the unerring hand of 

 nature. 



In bringing this before your notice, I will do so by enu- 

 merating a few illustrative examples : a striking one, which 

 has only recently been brought under my notice, is that of 

 the Lysicarpus ternifolius, Muell. This small, valuable, 

 timber tree I met with in abundance, on the broken, ridgy 

 country, at the eastern foot of the main range, wdiere the soil 

 was dry, and the rocks cropping out in all directions. The 

 frees and shrubs with which it was growing was such as are 

 usually met with in similar places, Casuarina, Eucalypti^ 

 Banksia, Acacias, Petalostigma^a, Daviesia, PuJtencea, Xant- 

 liorrlioea, tj'c. Before this I had supposed the tree only to 

 inhabit sandy knolls, such as are commoi^ on wide, open 

 country, and are usually covered with scrub, composed of 

 the following genera, viz : — ■ Acacia, Sal^ea, Grevillea, 

 Myoporum, Capjutris, Atalaya, Dodona-a, Hovea, Hremop)hila, 

 Notelcea, Sfc. The country surrounding these knolls is 

 generally good for pastoral purposes, and has nothing in 

 common with that first mentioned, with the exception that 

 the underlying rock is said by Geologists to be the same in 

 both places. Another curious instance of trees, as it were 

 straying away from their supposed natural habitat was 

 furnished by Timonius Rumplii, De C, two specimens of which 

 I found a few years back, in one of the gullies of Taylor's 

 Eange, about 6 miles west of Brisbane. These trees were 

 healthy and strong, and afforded good shade, altliough the 

 leaves were not so large as those of the plant in its natural 

 habitat. They seemed to have suffered nothing from frost, 

 although the Orange and Lemon trees of a garden not more 



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