60 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



and Orites, grow scramblingly over the rocks, 

 while everywhere the common Grass-tree (Bichea 

 scoparia) forms dense and forbiddingly prickly 

 masses. Wherever the ground is at all marshy 

 the native Artichoke, which is really a Lily (Astelia 

 alpina), forms prickly dense tufts, so dense that 

 one treads on the top of them without sinking in 

 at all. The whitish-green leaves, forming the tuft, 

 are broad and sedge-like, terminating in a sharp 

 spike ; the flower is very small and inconspicuous. 

 The native Artichoke is an entirely Alpine plant, 

 only occurring in the marshy mountain tops in 

 Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales. Grow- 

 ing in the same situations side by side with the 

 Artichokes on Mount Wellington are some peculiar 

 rounded cushions, of a vivid green colour, and 

 often several yards in circumference. The vivid 

 green shows up wonderfully among the prepon- 

 derating dull greens of the Artichokes and low- 

 growing Ferns, and the cushions look at first as if 

 they would be very spongy and treacherous, like 

 moss, but as a matter of fact they are quite hard 

 and firm, and one can jump from cushion to 

 cushion without sinking in at all. These cushions 

 are composed of a mass of very small star-like 

 plants belonging to the Compositae, known as 

 Abrotanella, a genus confined to the Alps in the 

 southern hemisphere. Curiously enough a plant 

 of an exactly similar method of cushion-like growth 

 occurs on the Harz Mountains and in the Alps of 

 New Zealand, but this plant belongs to the genus 



