i8o 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
[Vol. io, 
seen. At one place, where the train halted, were some pretty everlastings, 
and some of the passengers brought back bunches of the gorgeous scarlet 
“ Sturt pea ” ( Clianthus Dampieri ), one of the most magnificent of Australian 
flowers. 
The transcontinental terminates at Kalgoorlie, where a tiresome day 
was spent waiting for the train which was to take us on to Perth. The one¬ 
time famous mining centre was now almost dead, and the dreary country 
about offered very little to tempt the botanist, as the barren, sandy waste 
outside the town showed only scattered clumps of dwarf Eucalyptus scrub, 
and a few not particularly interesting flowers. 
The train for Perth left in the evening, and the next morning we saw 
something of the wonderful floral display for which Western Australia 
is famous. All the way to Perth the railway ran through a veritable garden 
of flowers, including some of the most interesting and beautiful of the West 
Australian species. Cycads ( Macrozamia Fraseri) and big grass trees 
(.Xanthorrhoea sp.) were very abundant in many places, and here and there 
the ground was carpeted with solid masses of beautiful pink and white 
everlastings. Most beautiful of all were clumps of Leschenaultia formosa , a 
member of the Goodeniacae, of a blue so pure and intense as to excel any¬ 
thing I have ever seen—a sight never to be forgotten. 
Bright yellow Hibbertias, blue Dampiera, scarlet, yellow, and purple 
Papilionaceae, pink Boronias, and many others which could not be identified 
mingled in this gorgeous show, and for the first time I saw one of the most 
extraordinary of the West Australian flowers, the so-called “Kangaroo 
paws” (Anigozanthos)—red, yellow, scarlet and green, or pure green. 
It was a most promising introduction to the floral wonders of this favored 
region. 
Perth, the principal town of the western state, is an attractive city of 
moderate size, which is an excellent place to see the flora of the coastal 
region. While there is no formal botanical garden, the city, with great 
wisdom, has reserved as a park, and left practically untouched, a tract 
of considerable size along the water front, in which the plants are protected 
and where one can see most of the beautiful flowers which abound in this 
region. 
The park extends along the bluffs of the river bank, and is an open 
forest in which the most important tree is the red gum {Eucalyptus calo- 
phylla), a very handsome and distinct species. An avenue of the splendid 
scarlet gum {E. ficifolia) has been planted, but I was too early to see it in 
flower. Many Casuarinas of fair size grow among the gums, and two 
Banksias, one of which, B. grandis, was a most striking object. The coarsely 
serrate leaves are said to be the largest leaves borne by any West Australian 
tree, and the immense cylindrical yellow inflorescences are extremely con¬ 
spicuous. 
The gritty, sandy soil was covered with a mass of varied vegetation. 
