44 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



First let me say a word or two about the weeds. This is a 

 fertile and salubrious district, consequently weeds grow apace ; 

 so do the rabbits. I have seldom seen so many rabbits in a 

 similar area in New South Wales as I did about Bright. And a 

 settler on the Tawonga road told me that the rabbits now were 

 " nothing " compared to what they were a few years ago. 



Hypericum perforatum, Linn., "St. John's Wort," is very 

 abundant in paddocks and along the side of the road, the district 

 being over large areas ablaze with its yellow flowers. It is a 

 small shrub i to 2 feet high, which my driver called the pest of 

 the district. It does not appear to have been hitherto formally 

 recorded in any catalogue of Victorian weeds. It appeared at 

 intervals all up the mountain. Blackberries are rampant. I saw 

 hedges of them ten yards across in many places. While driving 

 along a quiet road I came across a large family, minus father and 

 mother. The baby, in its perambulator, was in the middle of 

 the road, and was making itself a little Ethiopian with the aid of 

 a dipper of blackberries. The children had ladders, milk pails, 

 dippers, and tin mugs, were of the same colour as trie baby, and 

 informed me that they were gathering the fruit for sale, but 

 hadn't begun yet. The Sweet Briar is nearly as big a pest as the 

 Blackberry. Other common weeds are the Star Thistle, Centaurea 

 calcitrapa, Linn. ; the Black Thistle, Carduus lanceolatus, Linn. ; 

 the Variegated Thistle, Carduus marianus, Linn. ; and the Burr, 

 Acmna sanguisorbce, Vahl., a real annoyance here and most of 

 the way up the mountain. English Musk, Mimulus moschatus, 

 was found abundantly Cat the soak), also at Freeburgh, in the 

 water race, 4 miles from Bright, thoroughly acclimatized. It 

 occurs, in fact, right up the mountain, and I shall not readily 

 forget the delicious perfume of large masses of it on a damp, 

 cloudy morning ; its odour is more marked than that of our 

 numerous musks of the genus Olearia. 



The Mullein, Verbascum blaltaria, Linn., keeps the Hypericum 

 company about Bright and right up the mountain. It is really a 

 beautiful plant, if one can forget what a widely diffused weed 

 it is. 



Turning to the introduced plants which are not weeds, one 

 cannot but be struck with the beauty of the Elms. They are a 

 feature of the pretty township, and so are the Poplars. English 

 trees in general flourish in the district. I saw some Red Clover, 

 but some of the finest I have ever seen in my life was up the 

 mountain, about two miles from the Hospice. Another indica- 

 tion of the temperate climate is the fine hop gardens near 

 Harrietville — a most interesting sight. I noticed smaller hop 

 gardens on the Tawonga and Morse's Creek roads, but I under- 

 stand that hops are not grown in the district so much as formerly. 

 On one of my rambles I got into conversation with a farmer. I 



