58 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch- 



we ascended, the scrub, consisting largely of 

 Sassafras, Laurel, and Myrtle, became thicker and 

 thicker ; I saw here two remarkable Heaths, one 

 of which (Prionotes cerianthoides) is a climbing 

 creeper forming a tangled growth with pretty 

 purple bells upon the trunks of the larger trees, 

 and another (Trochocarpa Gunnii), which is itself 

 a tree with a profusion of giant bells for flowers. 

 I mention these two shrubs because Heather does 

 not do these things in the northern hemisphere. 

 The Waratah grew in great profusion and in the 

 protected forest sprang into tall trees with the 

 gorgeous red blooms shining high up and well 

 out of reach. In the moist gullies the Tree-ferns 

 shot up to a great height ; besides the ordinary 

 species (Dicksonia) with a stout stem, the much 

 rarer form (Cyathea) grows in this neighbourhood 

 (Fig. 16). On emerging from the luxuriant forest 

 growth of the lower slopes we traversed an exten- 

 sive marshy flat known as the Kermandie Plains, 

 which was comparatively free from timber, but 

 thickly overgrown with Button grass {Mesomelaena 

 sphaerocephala). This sedge grows in large tus- 

 socks upon marshy plains at a high elevation, and 

 often attains a height of about six feet ; the leaves 

 are very slender, and the flowers are borne as 

 buttons on an upstanding slender stalk, the plants, 

 when growing close together, forming a kind of 

 jungle which is not easy to walk through. 



After crossing the plains we soon began to as- 

 cend into the upper regions of the range ; the 



