a Water -Yielding Tree. 35 



August, or as soon as the weather becomes slightly warm. 

 When about a foot in length above the water, the natives pull 

 it up and eat it for food in an uncooked state. In flavour it 

 is very insipid, but extremely satisfying, and in this state is 

 termed by the natives "joutey." It is full grown, or nearly 

 so, by the time the waters recede, and remains green until 

 the frosts come round, when it becomes quite brown, and, if 

 not destroyed by fire, continues so until the young shoots 

 spring up the following season; and so it goes on from year 

 to year, until it becomes so thick as to be impervious to the 

 sun, thus rendering the ground quite swampy and impassable 

 for stock, therefore useless or worse than that." In the 

 summer the natives dig up the roots, which they either roast 

 or boil, and after masticating it and obtaining all the starch 

 therefrom, they retain the stringy, fibrous parts in lumps, 

 which the lubras carry about with them in their nets or bags, 

 like careful housewives, until such be required for making 

 strings or threads, which they afterwards net into bags, gir- 

 dles, and other useful articles. The nets used for catching 

 wild ducks, of which Mr. Blandowski gave us so interesting a 

 description at the last meeting, must be of considerable size 

 and strength, which convinces me that this is an article of 

 commerce well worthy the attention of exporters. 



Dr. Mueller describes it as rather remarkable that this 

 particular kind of Australian bulrush should have proved 

 identical with the species found in Switzerland, the " typha 

 shuttlewdrthi," and consequently its utility, as an article capa- 

 ble of manufacture, may be easily proved in Europe. There 

 are only two species found in Australia, but this particular 

 variety has been found all over this vast continent, and used by 

 many explorers as an article of food, on account of the starch 

 it contains. The seed, consisting of a mass of soft down — 

 called sometimes the " Murray down " — is very useful for 

 stuffing mattr asses. The coolness of this material admirably 

 adapts it for this purpose in a hot climate. 



The needle, or "porcupine grass/' exhibited on this occasion, 

 which has so very well been called by explorers " Spinifex," 

 on account of its forming such thorny barriers to travellers in 

 the Australian deserts, does not, Dr. Mueller informs me, be- 

 long to the particular genus described by Linnaeus under that 

 name, but is the "triodia irritans/' and he states, on the au- 

 thority of Mr. Gregory, that it is generally absent in the 

 otherwise similar desert scrubs of Western Australia, although 

 like species are encountered in Northern Australia. 



d 2 



