Sept., 1936. The Queensland Naturalist 
a similar environment to that in which beeches grow, not 
only in New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, but in 
New Zealand, and the south of South America. They 
grow in what would be described under Thornthwaite’s 
system as an AB ’r. climate, or, in other words, wet, mild 
mesothermal, and with moisture abundant at all seasons. 
They occupy the moister parts of the Macpherson Range, 
particularly where the cloud-belt maintains damp con- 
ditions. Surrounded by rain forest of the usual South 
Queensland type, the beech forests are infiltrated with 
many of its species. Quintinia Sieberi , the possum tree, 
Weinmannia lachnocarpa, Alsophila Leiclihardtiana, the 
prickly tree fern, Dickso'nia antarctica, Bacularia 
monostachya, the walking-stick palm, are found in both 
types of rain forest — the scrub and the beech. The out- 
standing difference is the dominance of the single species, 
Nothofagus Moorei, coupled with the fact that only ex- 
ceptionally do isolated specimens occur away from the 
main beech forest. In these mild temperate rain forests 
the beeches represent the most, hygrophytic community. 
At the other end of the series, such trees as Tristania con - 
ferta, the scrub box, dominate their associations, as at the 
Giant’s Garden on the Upper Coomera. 
Widgee Mountain is on a spur of the Macpherson 
Range. On its exposed northern side it is cloth pd by an 
open Eucalyptus forest, in which Xantliorrhoea arborea 
is conspicuous. This open forest runs right along the 
ridge, but some yards down on the southern side the rain 
forest rises up sharply. It consists partly of the typical 
vine scrub, but largely, and especially in the gullies, of 
beech forest. Big old gnarled trees are common, but in 
contrast to most of the other beech forests of the Range, 
there are a large number of young trees. Some of them 
are fine, straight specimens, with no sign of decay. Seed- 
lings and saplings are common. At some points there is 
definite evidence of the recent advance of the beech 
forest into territory formerly occupied by the open forest. 
At the highest point on the ridge the beech forest actually 
comes up over the top, and young beeches are found sur- 
rounding trees of Eucalyptus Banksii. The most remark- 
able thing, however, is the fact that Xantliorrhoea 
arborea persists under the new canopy. All round the 
grass trees are beeches with epiphytes, mosses and ferns, 
and the habitat is about as unlikely as it could be for 
Xantliorrhoea. Yet these plants have survived the chang- 
ing environment, and are growing there with epiphytic 
mosses, ferns, and orchids on their trunks. The epiphytes 
are of the same species as are found in the beech forest. 
