Australian Meeting of the British Association. 57 
growing, among a dense interlaced growth of trees and shrubs. In 
the case of some tree-ferns which had died, the top of the old 
trunk had served as the nursery for seedlings of neighbouring trees. 
Many, for example, presented the curious appearance of seeming 
to pass up into the stout stem of an Acacia tree, the l oot of which 
had grown down in close contact with the support and widening 
laterally had come to envelope it more or less completely. Other 
plants found included Hedycarya Cunninghami and Pittosporum 
bicolor, both characteristic of fern-tree country, Billardiera scandens 
another member of the Pittosporeae, Pomaderris apetala (Rham- 
naceae), and of lianes, which are not numerous in this State, Lyonsia 
straminea (Apocynaceae). In the course of the drive back to the 
railway several species of Acacia were obtained including A. 
juniperina with phyllodes of prickly needle-like form, and A. melan • 
oxylon which furnishes a beautiful wood much prized by the cabinet 
maker. Among many other plants may also be mentioned Astroloma 
(Acrotriche) serrulata and Sprengelia incarnata of Epacrids, Lomatia 
Fraseri and L. ilicifolia, east Australian representatives of the 
Proteaceae, the shrub Bauera rubioides (Saxifragaceae) an east 
Australian type, and species of tough-stemmed Pimelea (P. jlava, 
P. axiflora). 
Those present on the Warburton expedition had an opportunity 
of seeing the methods in operation for the felling, haulage and 
cutting-up of big timber, for Warburton is a centre of the saw¬ 
milling industry. It is in this district that the mountain ash 
Eucalyptus regnans, Australia’s tallest tree, attains sometimes to a 
height of 300 feet or more, rivalling in this respect the redwood 
( 1 Sequoia gigantea) of California. 
In the country just outside Melbourne the Acacias were already 
in flower, making woods and river banks golden with the profusion 
of bloom which on Wattle Sunday custom has permitted to be cut 
so freely for decorations with this national flower, that some 
restriction has now been found necessary. 
The Melbourne Botanic Garden is known the world over for 
the extent and beauty of the grounds. A reception held in the 
Gardens passed a most pleasant social afternoon, and the occasion 
was commemorated by the planting by the President of the 
Association (Professor Bateson) of a young plant of Cupressus 
macrocarpa. The operation of planting was no mere pretence, 
requiring later “touching-up”; the tree was “well and truly 
planted” there and then. 
