This Vale Was One Of The Most
Picturesque Spots We Had Yet Seen.
An Ironbark tree, with greyish
fissured bark and pale-green foliage, grows here, and Sterculia
heterophylla is pretty frequent amongst the box and flooded-gum, on the
rising ground between the two creeks.
Farther on, the country opened, the
scrub receded; Ironbark ridges here and there, with spotted gum, with
dog-wood (Jacksonia) on a sandy soil, covered with flint pebbles,
diversified the sameness. The grass was beautiful, but the tufts distant;
the Ironbark forest was sometimes interspersed with clusters of Acacias;
sometimes the Ironbark trees were small and formed thickets. Towards the
end of the stage, the country became again entirely flat, without any
indication of drainage, and we were in manifest danger of being without
water. At last, a solitary lagoon was discovered, about 30 yards in
diameter, of little depth, but with one large flooded gum-tree, marked,
by a piece of bark stripped off, as the former resting-place of a native;
the forest oak is abundant. Here I first met with Hakea lorea, R. Br.,
with long terete drooping leaves, every leaf one and a-half to two feet
long - a small tree 18 - 24 minutes high - and with Grevillea mimosoides, R.
Br., also a small tree, with very long riband-like leaves of a silvery
grey. We did not see any kangaroos, but got a kangaroo rat and a
bandicoot.
Oct. 11. - Travelling north-west we came to a Cypress-pine thicket, which
formed the outside of a Bricklow scrub.
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