The Vegetation of Mid-Australia

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 101, 4 February 1886, Page 3

The Vegetation of Mid- Australia

, M^r.Cl-mentWragge, F.R.G.S., who t has jre-urued 'to Adelaide after haviug made a trip through Queensland for the purpose of reporting to the Government' of that Colony on the reorg_____~ion of their meteorological system, has been interviewed by a reporter of the 'South Australian ' to whom he has given an account of hiajoUrlieyinfir; MrWragge states: that he, went from Townsville t-> the Johnstone River,, and he says : — "X waa^_armed beyond measure with thelovejly tr/jpical scefter_r of Johnston River, which in ite.projEusenesa. excels anything I-hajve. seen in- the island, qf Ceylon. In some {daces the cabbagepalms. grpw with a luxuriance equal to* jfchat - of v the . cocoanutrpalms : of Ceylon, and they are. almost as. useful, to man, as to.rtho trunks, make excellent bridges. over swamps, and the interior .of "the, trunk near the top furnishes food for the aborhsines. Another beautiful shrub is the fan palm, for which botanists have not yet found a scientific name. It is found eide.by' side with the lawyer palm (Calamus carpotoides). The intervening spaces of the scrub are filled up with creepers of a most luxuriant growth belonging -to the - convolvuli family. Flowering vines wrestle with lawyer palms and bananas, for the eupremacy of existence. They mingle in one tangled mass of loveliness and health, the one species now predominating and then the other, while aU*- are beautiful. Evergreen trees ahob-^'up boldly from the tangled jungle, and are decorated by gigantic: festooning creepers pf the convolvulus order. The slender, and graceful cabbage palms proudly tower aloft, the delicate tracery of their branches forming, an exquisite picture against tfye bright blue of the sky. Numberless ferns push forth their huge aud varied 'fronds amid the dense thicket with \vhich . they are almost completely surrounded, and expand their graceful' organisations to the light and ltf e of the river." This is indeed a wonderful scene for Australia. It stands in jtrange' contast to the saltbush plains, the rolling downs, and the r deserts of the vast interior.