90 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Secondly, the shrubs and the smaller trees, which under the 

 friendly shelter of the larger ones form quite a forest by them- 

 selves — a forest within a forest. Under the third head will be 

 put the ground lilies and the creepers, which clothe the scrub 

 floor with their luxuriance. Of the creepers the most plentiful is 

 the palm Calamus australis, known as the Lawyer Cane, which is 

 found growing over fallen logs and around the tree trunks and 

 shrubs. The green vegetative part is well covered with spines 

 and thorns, which make the scrub, in places where the Lawyer has 

 become thickly matted together, impassable. Dozens of the 

 tough wire-like canes spring from one root and travel for many 

 yards in all directions before the green portion is reached. It is 

 no uncommon thing for a single cane to measure 200 feet in 

 length, its thickness being not more than T % of an inch, while the 

 growing portion adds another 30 or 50 feet to the plant. The 

 green stem is protected by a sheath covered with spines ; the 

 ribs of the leaf also are armed, while from each joint there springs 

 a tendril some 2 or 3 feet long, armed its whole length with two 

 rows of incurved thorns. This tendril, in the simplest manner 

 possible, catches in your clothing or in your flesh. It is useless 

 attempting to drag yourself free, for the flexible plant will be 

 pulled down on you and more tendrils will hook on. If caught 

 you must stop and free the tendrils one by one. It is by the aid 

 of these appendages that the Lawyer Canes climb among the trees, 

 from where it is sometimes seen hanging in festoons in mid-air. 

 A species of Tecoma is also plentiful in the scrub, and is very 

 beautiful when in flower. Its vines spread themselves among the 

 branches of the trees, and the long pliant stems hang like a 

 number of vegetable ropes to the ground, trailing about in fan- 

 tastic shapes. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTE ON THE HABITS OF THE MYXOMYCETE— 

 DIACHuEA ELEGANS, Fries. 



By D. M Alpine, Government Vegetable Pathologist. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, \3th August, 1900.) 



On 24th April last Mr. C. French, jun., kindly sent me an 

 interesting fungus obtained at Armadale by Mr. W. S. Spence, 

 with the remark that the violets and other plants on which it 

 occurred looked as if someone had spilt candle grease over them, 

 and then the dark heads developed. I determined the fungus to 

 be Diachcea elegans, Fr., having been recorded before for 

 Victoria. 



It was not, however, recorded for Australia by Lister in his 

 " Monograph of the Mycetozoa," and I sent him a specimen, 



