110 
The Queensland Naturalist November, 1940 
the goldfields, and before daylight the next morning we 
boarded the rail motor “Endeavour” and headed out into 
the hills. A couple of hours later we were met at the 
line by friends with pack horses and saddle hacks, and 
then followed a long day’s ride into the hills. 
The country is hilly, carrying Bloodwood, Stringy 
Bark, Ironwood, etc., and is what we term forest country, 
with grass at present six feet high — splendid cattle coun- 
try. Scrub was to be found along the rivers mostly, and 
the infrequent patches of scrub on the hills is different 
to the rain forests of North Queensland, and more will be 
said about them later. Game was plentiful — turkeys, pigs, 
geese, ducks, and pigeons are all to be seen, while good 
fishing is to be had in the rivers. For those who desire 
crocodile shooting, this is to be had by following the 
rivers towards the mouth. 
Towards nightfall we pitched camp at the foot of a 
mountain showing a large patch of scrub, and it was here 
we expected to see Dendrobium Phalaenopsis. We had 
ridden all day and had only seen Cymbidium canalicula- 
tum in the forest and no orchid species at all in the scrubs 
along the river. 
Those of you who are not familiar with North Queens- 
land are inclined to consider it a climate of big rainfall, 
and judged by Innisfail and Tully standards, with their 
precipitation of over two hundred inches per year, so it 
is. There are, however, “dry belts” and it will come as 
a surprise to many to learn that Dendrobium Phalaenopsis 
grows in comparatively dry country, receiving an annual 
rainfall of forty to forty-five inches, and in places much 
less. Most of this forty inches falls in the first three 
months of the year and is followed by long dry spells. 
As I mentioned previously, it is mostly “forest country,” 
the “scrubs” being found on the tops and sides of moun- 
tains and it is in these scrubs that Dendrobium phalae- 
nopsis flourishes. 
It is not “scrub” as we are wont to use the term in 
North Queensland, but a low, open scrub that can be easily 
walked through. The common North Queensland variety 
is jungle, or, strictly speaking, “rain forest,” and al- 
though I noted several trees which grow in the Cairns dis- 
trict (including stinging tree) most of the scrub flora was 
new to me. The contour of the country was rough, with 
huge outcrops of granite boulders where only a mountain 
