650 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
Scotia Blocks (S.W.) of New South Wales the natives make high 
stacks (four feet or so) of the drained roots ; why, is not evident. 
Natives travel from Fowler’s Bay to Eucla in dry seasons through the 
scrub mainly dependent on malice water. Bound about Ooldea Water, 
S.A., Mr. Tietkens observed the same facility of dependence on water- 
trees. This mallee is found usually iu clumps all over dry Australia, 
from the Darling Biver to the Musgrave Ranges, and from the west 
coast of Western Australia, through the Nullabor Plains, to the 
MacDonnell Banges. Information concerning central Western Aus- 
tralia has not yet been obtained. It occurs frequently north of 
Adelaide and through the Murray Scrub east of Adelaide. 
The Needle-bush ( Hakea leucoptera : White-winged seed) is found 
very , generally all over Australia. It is usually of the height of 
five to eight feet, though full-grown trees attain a height of 80 feet. 
The diameter of the trunk of the small variety at the base is three 
inches, though the trunk usually is quite short ; it then forks. The 
wood is porous and spongy like the honeysuckle-tree. 
The needle-bush is one of the best of our water-trees, the roots 
being water-bearing, though it does not equal in this respect the 
water mallee. Mr. Morton Lockhart says of it : “ In an experiment 
on a water-yielding Hakea, the first root, about half-an-inch in diameter 
and six or eight feet long, yielded quickly, and in large drops, about 
a wine-glassful of really excellent water.” — Proc. P. S. Viet., 1860, 
p. 132. 
The Currajong. — The currajong (order Sterculiacejte, genus Brachy- 
cliiton ) of Central Australia is a good water-tree. It grows well in 
dry, arid country, and is there abundant. It is known in some parts 
as the bottle-tree from the shape of its stem. Evidently there are 
several varieties named currajong, all good water-trees. The curra- 
jong occurs in the Murrumbidgee country in North-west New South 
Wales ; on the Paroo, the Finke, and the Cooper in Western Australia, 
towards Queen Victoria Spring, and through the northern regions of 
South Australia. 
It is specially good for water storage. The tree has several 
large roots up to seven inches thickness at times at the trunk end. The 
roots are very porous, and frequently contain incredibly large supplies 
of water, which gushes out rapidly w T hen the pieces of root are set on 
end, the roots of a tree yielding gallons in quantity. In some regions 
natives subsist almost wholly on this source of supply. 
Desert Oak ( Casuarina Decaimeana : She-oak class of Southern 
Australia). — The Casuarina is water-storing, both in the roots and also 
in cavities in the stem, the latter being, as to water conservation, one 
of its special peculiarities. {See seq. 44 Hollow trees.”) 
Referring to this oak, Mr. W. II. Tietkens writes: — k£ Ooldea Wate 
region, South Australia : Travelling once with a small native boy of 
about ten years of age, and towards the close of a dreadful day, the 
water-bag long since emptied, and the boy gasping for water and 
myself no better— the boy was riding a very unusually tall camel — we 
still had fifteen miles more to travel. All at once a cry broke from 
him, and with one bound he was off that camel and running towards 
an oak-tree- well, four chains distant at least. 1 stopped the camels 
and went up to him. He was clawing away at the hot sandy soil, and 
at last— snap— a root H inches thick was broken; a hard pull, and 
