Tropic Days | Page 5

and habits so divergent that the casual observer
fails to recognise the least signs of relationship. Similar confusion
arises in the case of plants of the same species producing foliage of
varied form. One of the figs (FICUS OPPOSITA) displays such
remarkable inconsistency that until reassured by many examples it is
difficult to credit an undoubted fact. The typical leaf is oblong elliptical,
while individual plants produce lanceolate leaves with two short lateral
lobes, with many intermediate forms. As the plant develops, the
abnormal forms tend to disappear, though mature plants occasionally
retain them. There seems to exist correlation between foliage and fruit,

for branches exhibiting leaves with never so slight a variation from the
type are, according to local observation, invariably barren. The leaves,
which, when young, are densely hairy on the underside, on maturity
become so rough and coarse that they are used by the blacks as a
substitute for sandpaper in the smoothing of weapons. The fruit is small,
dark purple when ripe, sweet, but rough to the palate.
During the fulness of the wet season, a diminutive orchid, the roots,
tuber, leaf, and flower of which may be easily covered by the glass of a
lady's watch, springs upon exposed shoulders of the hills. So far it has
not been recorded for any other part of Australia, or, indeed, the world.
Science has bestowed upon it the title of CORYSANTHES
FIMBRIATA, for it is all too retiring of disposition to demand of man a
familiar name. Probably it may be quite common in similar localities,
but its size, its brief periodicity, and inconspicuousness, contribute to
make it, at present, one of the rarities of botany. Beneath a
kidney-shaped leaf a tiny, solitary, hooded, purple flower shelters with
becoming modesty, the art of concealment being so delicately
employed that it seems to preserve its virginal purity. There is proof,
however, that the flower does possess some "secret virtue," for if the
plant be immersed in glycerine the preservative takes the hue of the
flower. Nature having ordained that the plants should be elusive, they
appear in remote spots and unlikely situations with foothold among
loose and gritty fragments of rock, and with cessation of the sustaining
rains disappear, each having borne but a single leaf and produced but a
solitary flower. The leaf does not seem to be attractive to insects, nor is
the flower despoiled or the tuber interfered with. The first dry day sears
the plants, and succeeding days shrivel them to dust and they vanish.
What part in the great scheme of Nature does the humble flower fulfil?
Or is it merely a lowly decoration, not designed to court the ardent gaze
of the sun, but to brighten an otherwise bare space of Mother Earth
with a spot of fugitive purple?
Widely different are the ant-house plants, of which North Queensland
has two genera. One is purely an epiphyte, growing attached to a tree
like many of the orchids. In both genera the gouty stems are hollow, a
feature of which ants take advantage; they are merely occupiers, not the
makers of their homes. Few, if any, of the plants are uninhabited by a
resentful swarm, ready to attack whomsoever may presume to interfere

with it. It is discomposing to the uninitiated to find the curious
"orchid," laboriously wrenched from a tree, overflowing with stinging
and pungent ants, nor is he likely to reflect that the association between
the plant and the insect may be more than accidental.
Some of the commonest wattles exhibit singularity of foliage well
worth notice. Upon the germination of the seeds the primary leaves are
pinnate. After a brief period this pretty foliage is succeeded by a
boomerang-shaped growth, which prevails during life. Botanists do not
speak of such trees as possessing leaves, but "leaf-stalks dilated into the
form of a blade and usually with vertical edges, as in Australian
acacias." If one of these wattles is burnt to the ground, but yet retains
sufficient life to enable it to shoot from the charred stem, the new
growth will be of pinnate leaves, shortly to be abandoned for the
substitutes, which are of a form which checks transpiration and fits the
plant to survive in specially dry localities. Several of the species thus
equipped to withstand drought are extremely robust in districts where
the rainfall is prolific. There are no data available to support the theory
that such species in a wet district are more vigorous and attain larger
dimensions than representatives in drier and hotter localities. In her
distribution of the Australian national flower, Nature seems to be
"careless of the type," or rather regardless in respect of conditions of
climate.
Human beings, and occasionally animals lower in the scale, deviate
distressingly in their conduct from the general. Plants, too,