32 
The Queensland Naturalist 
May, 1942 
brought enormous distances and so transformed the face 
of the land. In the artesian basin, artesian water has 
made grazing profitable on a large scale, but the artesian 
water is unsuitable for irrigation, and in some places is 
too deep for practical use. 
But settlement in or near desert areas has its dangers, 
and unless great care is taken, there is a very strong ten- 
dency for soil when disturbed, to “drift.” The surface 
soil is blown about and may be removed entirely to some 
other area which is then buried. This is what is meant 
by “the encroachment of the desert.” Trampling by 
stock, particularly in very dry times, may initiate this 
“drift,” but agricultural practice is very dangerous. For- 
tunately, this encroachment of the desert is of minor con- 
cern in Queensland, but in parts of New South Wales and 
South Australia, and in other countries, the problem is 
a very serious one. 
A BABE LYCOPOD FBOM THE LAMINGTON 
NATIONAL PARK, S.E. QUEENSLAND 
(By C. T. White, Government Botanist, Brisbane) 
Some months ago I was handed a specimen of Tassel 
Fern from the Lamington National Park collected by Miss 
M. O’Reilly, who stated it was rare there. I also received 
another specimen from the National Park collected by 
Mr. S. T. Blake. Mr. Blake found his plant (Blake 
No. 14121) near the Goomera Falls on vertical rock-faces 
associated with filmy ferns and mosses in Scrub Box 
( Tristania conferta ) forest on steep hillsides at an alti- 
tude of 2,400 feet. On examination these proved to be 
Lycopodium varium B. Br., a species with a very wide 
distribution throughout New Zealand, the Pacific Islands 
and 1 Australia. It is a lover of cool highlands, and in Aus- 
tralia is most frequent in the mountain areas of Victoria 
and Tasmania. In the “Queensland Flora” (p. 1923) 
F. M. Bailey records it for the “Queensland Tropics.” 
Previous to these specimens from the National Park, the 
only Queensland specimen in the Queensland State Her- 
barium was one from neav the top of Bellenden Ker (Palm 
Camp — Meston’s Bellendm Ker Expedition, 1889). In 
the National Herbarium, Melbourne, I have also recently 
