THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 239 
is just on the borderland where the sand-hills meet the mighty 
Nullarbor Plain. 
Mr. Stead exhibited the fruits of a small Mallee, Eucalyp- 
tus pyriformis, which are extraordinarily large—measuring up 
to two and a half inches in diameter—and of a very ornamental 
shape. He also showed the fossil “east” of a univalve taken 
from a great fossil bed at the edge of the great plain, and a 
number of flint flakes left by, the blacks in the vicinity of the 
soak. 
ERYTHRINA INDICA. In Australian Naturalist, IV., 1921, p. 
206, Miss Butler mentions the usual non-setting of seed by this 
tree in the vicinity of Sydney. That it does occasionally set 
seed is proved by the exhibition at the July meeting of the 
Linnean Society of N.S. Wales, by Mr. Fletcher, of a number 
of complete pods with the seed. still attached, from a tree at 
Hunter’s Hill, near Sydney. 
Ed. “A.N.” 
Fueurires. At a meeting of the Fhysical Society, Lon- 
don, on April 10th, 1908, an interesting paper was read by 
Miss Butcher, on “Fulgurites and the formation of artificial 
Fulgurites.” A full report of the paper and discussion which 
followed its reading will be found in The Chemical News, Vol. 
97, 1908, p. 225. This can be seen at the Library of the Royal 
Society, Elizabeth Street. 
Ed. “A.N.” 
Native BLACKTHORN. Mr. T. Steel exhibited specimens 
of Bursaria spinosa from Pennant Hills, heavily infested with 
the common citrus wax scale. In many cases plants have been 
killed outright by the scale, which were closely clustered along 
the branchlets like beads on a cord. As this plant is extremely 
common throughout the Cumberland fruit-growing districts, it 
serves as a source of infection to the citrus orchards and 
should on this account be declared a noxious weed and its 
destruction made compulsory. 
