THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 71 



spring. When summer comes they retire into the background, 

 and leave the painted corolla in full possession of the field ; but 

 woe to the poor bud if the summer is not propitious, for, at the 

 first touch of frost, it finds that its gay protector is an utter failure. 

 So often does this happen that " nipped in the bud " is one of 

 our commonest sayings. 



The corolla, however, is not always useless as a protector for 

 the marigold. May weed and many other flowers close in the 

 evening and " ope at dawn of day." But to return to the flower 

 of the musk-tree. Instead of being composed of a single blossom, 

 such as I have described, it has its flower made up of a great 

 number of them placed close together on a fleshy cushion ; each 

 little floweret is perfect in all its parts except that the calyx 

 appears in the form of hairs instead of leaves. These hairs are 

 a beautiful provision of nature for scattering the seeds. Every 

 seed when ripe has some hairs fastened evenly all round ; so when 

 the wind wafts it away it floats evenly in the air, and is thus 

 carried to an immense distance. 



Before we say farewell to our mountain gully I will mention 

 the native mulberry. Its brighc, glossy leaves, slightly serrated 

 at the edges, reminds us strongly of the holly, a:id, as it only 

 grows in the shadiest spots, it serves to lighten up the gloomy 

 aspect of the place, for it seems to have the power of catching 

 every stray ray of light and reflecting it with interest. It also 

 has, or rather, had, its uses before Europeans, with their lucifers 

 and wax vestas, appeared on these scenes. This plant, which 

 bears the euphonious name of Hedycarya Cunniiighamii, would 

 then have been hunted tor eagerly by a native towards sundown; 

 having found it, he would have cut off a small branch, trimmed 

 and pointed it with his stone hatchet, then got a little of the 

 inside bark of the messmate and rubbed it between his hands 

 until it became like tow or curled horsehair ; lastly, he would 

 have produced a piece of old, dry wood — without which he never 

 travelled — put the bark just under a notch in the side of the dry 

 wood, and, placing the pointed end of the mulberry stick in the 

 notch, would have grasped the remainder of it between his 

 flattened palms, rubbed them backwards and forwards, so that 

 the stick would revolve quickly, being careful, at the same time, 

 never to remove the pointed end from the notch ; the friction 

 thus evolved performed a two-fold operation— first it rubbed 

 small, dusty, particles from the dry wood, and then ignited these 

 particles by the velocity of the motion. 



I must confess that, although I have tried this plan various 

 times, I have never succeeded in getting a light, but I suppose 

 only practice makes perfect, for I have it from undoubted 

 authority that within sixty seconds a native can obtain sparks^ 

 and a few seconds more suffices to fan the bark into a flame. 



