EFFECT OF SETTLEMENT UPON INDIGENOUS VEGETATION. 201 
herbaceous plants have a better chance of flourishing in such an 
area the next spring. Then, too, the bulbous-rooted plants, 
although their leaves and stems are destroyed, come up with 
renewed vigour after the next rain, and also have some amount 
of advantage given them in the struggle for existence by the 
destruction of their coarser and stronger competitors which before 
cut off so much of the light and air from them. Asa rule, a 
burnt tract of country is notable for the show of terrestrial orchids 
and liliaceous plants it makes the following spring ; indeed some 
orchids are actually shy of blooming excepting after a fire. The 
late Mr. R. D. Fitzgerald remarks that Lyperanthus nigricans 
flowers as a rule only after a fire ;* and I have observed the same 
thing myself. Wishing to get some flowers from a cluster of plants 
which I had known not to have blossomed for some years, I heaped 
some dry leaves on them and burnt them off, and was rewarded 
the next year by several spikes of flowers. And I have recently 
seen large numbers of plants of Z. Burnetii in bloom on a burnt 
tract where for five years previously I had not seen asingle flower. 
Among plants which are undoubtedly benefited, as far as pro- 
pagating their species goes, are the wattles. Their seeds have a 
coating of an extreme, almost stony, hardness, and will lie on or 
beneath the soil for an indefinite time without germinating. But 
let a fire sweep over a spot where wattles grow, and although it 
may destroy hundreds of mature trees, yet it will burst the hard 
testa of the seeds and the result will be myriads of young and 
healthy plants. On this account writers on the subject of wattle 
culture recommend the seeds to be placed in boiling water or 
scattered in the glowing embers of a fire of twigs, and then when 
sown they will quickly germinate.t The prevalence of young 
wattles after a bush fire is a fact that must have struck the most 
unobservant in the bush. 
In a paper by the late Rev. R. Collie, “On the Influence of 
Bushfires in the distribution of Species,”t he gives an account of 
* Australian Orchids, Vol. 1., Pt. iv. 
+ Vide J. H. Maiden—Wattles and Wattle Culture. 
t Journ. Roy. Soc. of N.S. Wales, Vol. x1v., p. 108, et seq. 
