WINTER SCENE IN AUSTRALIA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 378, 15 July 1911, Page 2

WINTER SCENE IN AUSTRALIA.

Here is a pretty description of an Australian winter scene :

"Down by the sea the tea-tree is commencing to weave its veil of flowers. Only a faint promise as yet, soon the sweet white blossoms will spread from bough to bough, until every slender spray is strung with shining petals. Long since the inland dunes and ridges became 'painted with delight,' and the heathgatherers have broken many a pathway through the thick-clustered stems. On sheltered slopes the sweetscented acacia is putting forth its delicate inflorescence —fairy flowers of palest gold, whose fragrance is like the soft incense borne on the south wind from some lotus land of palms and pearls, whose shores are washed by undiscovered seas. "Part the heather stems gently with your hand and you will find the little orchid blossoming there, with green hoods upborne on slender stems. Beautiful as are the flowers of winter, they must share our love with the birds—the birds with their great gift of song. . . . The honeysuckles are full of birds, golden wings and brown and grey flicker continually among the leaves. The birds are draining the nectar from the pale yellow cones, and their shrill pipings are often heard above the song of the surf."