110 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



BOTANICAL NOTES FROM NORTH-WEST AUSTRALIA. 



Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., forwards the following notes 

 from a correspondent at Derby, N.W. Australia : — " I expect to 

 have no difficulty in forwarding you a cornsack full of the fruit of 

 the Gouty Stem {Adansonia Gregorii), or, as it is generally termed 

 locally, the ' Boabab ' tree, as the tree occurs all along the coast 

 that I have visited — a distance of about 600 miles. The tree is 

 certainly an interesting figure in the botanic world. It is such a 

 conspicuous object as to almost always attract attention. Its- 

 venerable and corpulent form stands clearly out from surrounding, 

 vegetation on sloping cape or rugged headland, along almost 

 every mile of our coast, but in alluvial flats or on extensive 

 plains it usually achieves its greatest growth. I have seen 

 some monsters that must be many hundreds of years old,, 

 the apparently great age of which tempt one to parody the late 

 laureate's lines and say of it — " Trees may come and trees may 

 go, but I grow on for ever." They certainly bear the scars of many 

 a doughty battle w^ith the ever-varying assaults of the elements- 

 Near Derby, round which many interesting specimens of it may 

 be found, lies a unique sample of its kind. Possibly a thousand 

 years or so of wet seasons have draped its short stout arms with 

 foliage, and a thousand years or so of summer suns have brought 

 forth their tribute of sweet-smelling blossoms ; cut down then to- 

 make way for a road for the advance guard of the armies of 

 civilization, and rolled on to the roadside, this hale old tree still 

 greets the coming of the summer rain and summer sun with 

 bursts of foliage, attesting the imperishable vigour and vitality of its 

 species. / have never met a dead JBoabab, and observant bush- 

 men of wide experience on being questioned on the subject have 

 not been able to recall any recollection of having seen a Boabab 

 tree with the form and semblance of death upon it. From my 

 own observations, I should say that one of the reasons of the- 

 tree's great vitality lies in the fact that it stores its own water. At 

 the end of the wet season it is full of sap, and if pierced after five 

 or six of the dry months have passed, the volume of this will not 

 have decreased to any noticeable extent, creating the impression 

 that the tree has been husbariding its resources, and merely exists 

 in a state resembling dormancy during the prevalence of the dry 

 months. The opinion that the Boabab only grows where it can 

 get a constant supply of water appears to me erroneous, for I have 

 seen it growing on cliff-sides and on sharp hill-slopes in such 

 positions as to render it impossible to imagine that any subter- 

 ranean water supply could exist. Another tree, a member of the 

 genus Eucalyptus (perhaps B. terminalis), that we call the Grey 

 Box, sometimes exhibits the same or somewhat similar habits^ 

 either as a characteristic trait of its species or as a coincidence* 



