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Updated: May 11, 2025
Coxen's Peak and Range were found to be composed of horizontal strata of excellent sandstone, rising by steep terraces, on the western side, but sloping gently down to the east; its summit is covered with scrub, but its eastern slope with groves of grass-trees.
Its general elevation above the level of the sea, was about three hundred feet, and to a distant observer, it seemed to be a perfect table land, unbroken to the horizon, and destitute of all timber or trees, except occasionally a few cabbage-trees, grass-trees, or minor shrubs; it was also without grass.
He had felled the youngest of the grass-trees, and was now chopping off its green tuft. Soon he appeared, carrying a huge bunch of the coarse blades of foliage, which he brought to the tent.
Everywhere we found the soil sandy, and very poor; it supported either a coarse vegetation of thin, low brushwood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees. In the open parts there were many grass-trees, a plant which, in appearance, has some affinity with the palm; but, instead of being surmounted by a crown of noble fronds, it can boast merely of a tuft of very coarse grass-like leaves.
Some grass-trees grew in the vicinity of this spring to a height of over twenty feet.
The women do all the work, such as building huts, carrying water, digging up roots, and procuring grubs out of the wattle and grass-trees. A hunting excursion with a large party of natives is capital sport.
We saw one desert oak-tree and a few currajong-trees of the order of Sterculias, some grass-trees, quandong, or native peach, Fusanus, a kind of sandal-wood, and the red gum or blood-wood-trees; the latter always grows upon ground as high as it can get, and therefore ornaments the tops of the sandhills, while all the first-named trees frequent the lower ground between them.
Then they passed from bed to bed of temporary streams, carrying water only in the rainy season, and there the usual pools of water remained in the shade of dense copses of grass-trees, boxwood and gum-trees or eucalyptus.
Until the top of the tree is dead it is not a proper receptacle for these animals. The natives are therefore in the habit of breaking off the tops of the grass-trees on their land at a particular season of the year in order that they may have an abundance of this highly-prized article of food.
To commemorate my friend Count Strzelecki's discovery of this important and valuable district, which he named in honour of His Excellency the Governor, I called the summit of a woody range 2110 feet high, over the north shore of Corner Inlet, Mount Fatigue.* The only vegetation this part of the promontory supports is a wiry grass, stunted gums and banksias in the valleys, and a few grass-trees near the crests of the hills which are generally bare masses of granite.
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