At a reserve at Illabarook, and another near Linton, kangaroo grass, spear grasses, wallaby grasses, tussock grasses and many more were found.

A special grass found at Illabarook is purple wire-grass, a multi-stemmed, stiff-stemmed grass with purple-tinged heads. It is almost unknown elsewhere in the Ballarat district.

Other grasses seen during the day included weeping grass, mat grass, love grass, wheat grass and others, with the defining characteristics of each pointed out in the field.

Sometimes this involved looking at grass flowers and seedheads with a magnifying lens, and also looking at the general appearance of the whole plant, such as shape, height, stems, leaves and so on.

Some species have branched seedheads, while others have the flowers and seeds joined directly to the main stem without any branches.

The majority of grasses have branched seedheads, but the branches are not always easy to notice.

More than 20 native grass species were seen during the day, as well as seven or eight exotic species.

It might be thought that wallaby grasses are smaller versions of the kangaroo grass, but this is not the case.

Their shape, colour, leaves and flowering time are completely different, although most wallaby grasses are smaller than kangaroo grass.

Other plants were noticed too, with flowers of lightwood wattle, cranberry heath, small St John's wort, narrow-leaf New Holland daisy, sweet hound's tongue, blue devil and Australian bindweed found at the Illabarook site.

A recent fat-tailed dunnart sighting at Burrumbeet is of interest.

This small native marsupial is seldom reported, although it is not yet regarded as rare.

Like most small mammals, it is seldom seen during the day, unless disturbed from its sheltering places.

The recent Burrumbeet animal was found under tin.

Most sightings are made when rocks, logs, metal and fenceposts are removed.

They are sometimes found around hay sheds, or under farm implements.

Although they will shelter underground in cracking clay soils, they are not strong burrowers, so they are usually found near the surface.

The western plains is one of their most important habitats, where they like native grass paddocks, or paddocks that have patches of open ground between tufts of grasses.

The fat-tailed dunnart has a larger body than a mouse, with a shorter, thicker tail.

Its eyes and ears are noticeably larger than those of a mouse.

We came across this unusual thistle along the Yarrowee at Cambrian Hill. The stem and leaves are entirely thornless. The plant has now been pulled up.

R.A., Napoleons.

This is a greater burdock, a weed from Europe.

With big "burr" heads and large leaves, burdock is quite an appropriate name, even if the plant is in the thistle daisy family. It certainly has a very thistle-like head, as the photo indicates.

It is not common in the Ballarat district. It likes moist places with disturbed soils. There are no prior records for the Yarrowee. The deep root is sometimes eaten and was traditionally used for many herbal purposes. Burdock is a biennial plant, taking two years to mature. Removal of your specimen was wise. No more weeds are wanted along the Yarrowee.