The dry, rocky, arid, and sandy districts, which may be compared to the Landes of Brittany, are clothed with a peculiar vegetation. The strangest plant, which is also the most widely distributed, is undoubtedly the _Xanthorrhoea arborea_,[119] forming a conspicuous feature in the dreary landscape, and when stripped of its leaves resembling a black man holding a spear. The leaves afford good fodder for cattle, while the natives eat the soft white centre of the top of the stem. They yield two kinds of fragrant resin--one of a yellow colour, balsamic and inodorous, called Botany Bay; and the other red, called Black Boy Gum. The tree--which the settlers have christened "Black Boy" and "Grass Gum"--has a thick trunk, encrusted in a thick coating of the persistent basis of old leaves, glued together by the yellow or red resin with which the plant abounds, and usually burned and blackened outside by bush-fires. The leaves are long, wiry, and grass-like, and are borne in a dense tuft at the top of the stem, hanging gracefully all around it. Their long flower-stalks aspire from its centre, sometimes growing as high as fifteen or twenty feet, and carrying aloft a thick cylindrical flower spike. Among the lowlier plants are found a few Hectias, such as the _Hectia Pitcairniæfolia_, one of the Bromelias, very curious from its mode of vegetation; and the _Stipa crinita_, a very common grass. The leaves of the latter have been manufactured into paper of tolerable consistency. The sandy and colder tracts are the habitat of the annual or perennial Compositæ, distinguished by their smooth and shining flowers. On the other hand, the dry rocky surfaces are besprinkled with inconsiderable woods, or rather thickets, formed in part of the _Santalum acuminatum_, whose nutritious fruit are called "peaches" by the colonists; the _Santalum persicarium_, or sandal wood; several _Nitrarias_,[120] with edible fruits; a great number of Acacias, notably the _Acacia verticillata_, _A. sophora_, and _A. doratoxylon_, whose very hard wood is employed in the fabrication of javelins; a considerable series of Proteaceæ, particularly the _Banksia Australis_, _B. serrata_, and _B. integrifolia_, so characteristic in aspect and foliage; and a few _Eucalypti_,[121] or "Gum Trees," of small stature--among others, the "Traveller's Tree," or _Eucalyptus oleosa_.[122] Its roots extend horizontally, and retain a quantity of water sufficient to quench the wayfarer's thirst in the hour of need. All the Eucalypti are curious trees, with entire and leathery leaves, affording an unusual amount of aromatic oil. Many of the species abound in resinous secretions; some attain a great size, with trunks of from 8 to 16 feet in diameter, and 150 or 160 in length. The _Eucalyptus resinifera_--"Red Gum" or "Iron Bark Tree"--reaches to an elevation of 150 to 200 feet. When wounded, a red juice flows from it very freely, hardening into irregular,