Tropic Days | Page 4

her own, that life overflows with joy
when mutual admiration surcharges the breast.
The noise stays a company of metallic starlings in headlong flight from
the nest-laden tree in the forest to the many-fruited jungle. Though they
most conscientiously search the fronds of coco-nut palms for
insignificant grubs and caterpillars, starlings do not hawk for insects.
Held up by the excitement--for by this time other birds have darted to
the feast--the starlings alight among the plumes of the laburnum,

interrogating in acidulous tones, their black, burnished, iridescent
feathers and flame-hued eyes making a picture of rare vividness and
beauty.
How thin becomes the throng! Last night's shower, the morning
warmth of the soil, have brought forth a gush of life that wheels and
sparkles in the sun and becomes bait for birds. Are droughts designed
by Nature to test endurance on the part of animal and vegetable life?
Leaves fall from evergreen trees almost as completely as from the
deciduous, and even the jungle is thickly strewn, while every slight
hollow is filled with brittle debris where usually leaves are limp with
dampness and mould. The jungle has lost, too, its rich, moist odours.
Whiffs of the pleasant earthy smell, telling of the decay of clean
vegetable refuse, do issue in the early morning and after sundown; but
while the sun is searching out all the privacies of the once dim area, the
wholesome fragrance does not exist.
Drought proves that certain species of exotic plants are hardier than
natives. Wattles suffer more than mangoes, and citrus fruits have
powers of endurance equal to eucalyptus. Whence does the banana
obtain the liquid which flows from severed stem and drips from the cut
bunch? Dig into the soil and no trace of even dampness is there; but
rather parched soil and unnatural warmth, almost heat. Heat and
moisture are the elements which enable one of the most succulent of
plants to bear a bunch of fruit luscious and refreshing, and when heat
alone prevails, the wonder is that the whole patch of luxuriant
greenness does not collapse and wither. But the broad leaves woo the
cool night airs, and while the thin, harsh, tough foliage of the wattles
becomes languid and droops and falls, the banana grove retains its
verdancy, each plant a reservoir of sap.
A noteworthy feature of the botany of the coast of tropical Queensland
is its alliance with the Malayan Archipelago and India. Most of the
related plants do not occur in those parts closest to other equatorial
regions in the geographical sense, but in localities in which climate and
physical conditions are similar. Probably there are more affinities in the
coastal strip of which this isle is typical than in all the rest of the
continent of Australia. One prominent example may be mentioned-viz.,
"the marking-nut tree." When the distinctiveness of the botany of the
southern portions of Australia from that of the old country began to

impress itself on the earliest settlers, the miscalled native cherry was
the very first on the list of reversals. The good folks at home were told
that the seeds of the Australian cherry "grow on the outside." The fruit
of the cashew or marking-nut tree betrays a similar feature in more
pronounced fashion. The fruit is really the thickened, succulent stalk of
the kidney-shaped nut. The tint of the fruit being attractive,
unsophisticated children eat of it and earn scalded lips and swollen
tongues, while their clothing is stained indelibly by the juice. Botanists
know the handsome tree as SEMECARPUS AUSTRALIENSIS, but by
the indignant parent of the child with tearful and distorted features and
ruined raiment it is offensively called the "tar-tree," and is subject to
shrill denunciations. The fleshy stalk beneath the fruit is, however,
quite wholesome either raw or cooked, but the oily pericarp contains a
caustic principle actually poisonous, so that unwary children would of a
certainty eat the worst part. The tree, which belongs to the same order
as the mango, has a limited range, and there are those who would like
to see it exterminated, forgetful that in other parts of the world the
edible parts are enjoyed, and also that a valuable means to the
identification of linen is manufactured from it. A tree that is ornamental,
that provides dense shade, that bears pretty and strange fruit, an edible
part, and provides an economic principle, is not to be condemned
off-hand because of one blot on its character.
An Indian representative of the genera produces a nut which when
roasted is highly relished, though dubiously known as the coffin-nail or
promotion nut, but there is no reason to believe that it is specially
indigestible unless eaten in immoderate quantity.
One of the many bewilderments of botany is that plants of one family
exhibit characteristics