42 
soft grass rose here a wide patch of rich purple flowers, 
there au irregular mass of white blossoms, and beyond a 
long bed of pink. On one slope the bright orange of a 
large everlasting prevailed, and on the opposite bank 
vide patches of white and red mingled with the vivid 
green of a plant like anemone. It would not be possible 
to find hollows and dells more richly adorned than those 
which here face the sun. 
The grasses from Mount Hotliam to and beyond the 
ridge leading to Mount Feathertop are thin and poor, as 
compared with those on the slopes, and, at one point, 
there is a rather thick scrub, with a few small distorted 
eucalyptus shrubs. Feathertop itself is moderately 
grassed, but there is no tree or shrub on it. 
Making the descent from Feathertop towards Stony 
Creek we found no vestige of the snow-grasses after 
reaching the level of 5500 feet. Scrub and low bushes 
appear below that line, then a low eucalyptus scrub, like 
mallee, extending for a mile and a half, which gives place 
to distorted and crooked white-gum trees—small and low. 
The timber improves at every step in the descent after the 
scrub is left, until at length messmate is met with, which 
becomes larger and better as we approach a considerable 
belt of wattle-trees, at no very great elevation above 
Stony Creek. From that point to the river there is the 
ordinary gum, box, stringy-bark, and messmate forest. 
Mr. Howitt communicated some curious facts relative 
to the distribution of plants foreign to Gippsland. lie 
informed us that all along the paths over the mountains 
that are trodden by pack-horses there is a line of acclima¬ 
tized plants, such as hogwced, clover, &c. The horses 
appear to carry the seeds of liogweed and a very little 
