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Tea is a most important feature of Australian life. Tea comes in with the maid and hot water in the mornings, and tea is drunk at breakfast; “Morning tea” is a settled social institution. We were invited to it on several occasions, it is served at eleven o’clock. Tea next appears at or after lunch. Afternoon tea is a matter of course everywhere; but it comes in again at or after dinner, and is very often drunk the last thing at night. One would think so much tea would undermine the strongest constitution, but it is made very weak with a great deal of milk. Australians themselves feel that their indulgence in tea-drinking is rather excessive but they account for it by saying that “In the bush you cannot get anything else to drink,” and neither seek nor offer other explanation.

It was at this Perth tea-party that we first saw the brown heavily scented “boronia,” for which West Australia is famous. The tables were decorated with that and the delicate pink Geraldstown wax flower. Boronia has a small chocolate-coloured flower, yellow inside, and is so sweet that its scent is overpowering in a room or on a dinner table. The genus was named after an Italian botanist. There are many varieties in Australia, which, to the uninstructed eye, do not in the least resemble each other. Boronia megastigma, the West Australian variety, is used for the manufacture of scent, and is cultivated for sale; it is one of the most characteristic spring flowers.