BULBOUS ROOTS. 
269 
Moths are procured as before described ; or the 
larger varieties are caught at nights whilst flying 
about. 
Fungi are abundant, and of great variety. Some 
are obtained from the surface of the ground, others 
below it, and others again from the trunks and 
boughs of trees. 
Roots of all kinds are procured by digging, one 
of the most important being that of the flag or 
cooper’s reed, which growls in marshes or alluvial 
soils that are subject to periodical inundations. 
This is used more or less at all seasons of the year, 
but is best after the floods have retired and the 
tops have become decayed and been burnt off. The 
root is roasted in hot ashes, and chewed, when it 
affords a nutritious and pleasant farinaceous food. 
The belillah is another important bulbous root, 
which also grows on lands subject to floods. It is 
about the size of a walnut, of a hard and oily na- 
ture, and is prepared by being roasted and pounded 
into a thin cake between tw r o stones. Immense 
tracts of country are covered with this plant on 
the flats of the Murray, which in the distance look 
like the most beautiful and luxuriant meadows. 
After the floods have retired I have seen several 
hundreds of acres, with the stems of the plant six 
or seven feet high, and growing so closely together 
as to render it very difficult to penetrate far amongst 
them. 
The thick pulpy leaf of the mesembryanthemum 
is in general use in all parts of Australia which I 
