Tas, 5953. 
STYLIDIUM spatuvuLatTum. 
Native of King George's Sound. 
Nat. Ord. StyLipicz. 
Genus Srytipium, Swartz ; (Benth. Flor, Austral., vol. iv. p. 1). 
Srytiprum spathulatum ; foliis radicalibus petiolatis dense rosulatis obovato- 
v. elliptico-spathulatis obtusis acutisve integerrimis pubescentibus v. 
glanduloso-pilosis enerviis, scapis gracilibus erectis glabratis, squamis 
paucis subulatis, racemo simplici erecto laxifloro, pedicellis gracilibus 
2-bracteolatis, calycis tubo subclavato, lobis liberis ovato-lanceolatis, 
corollz pallide straminee segmentis 4 lineari-oblongis apice rotundatis 
basi aurantiacis quinto minuto subulato recurvo, capsula obovoideo- 
oblonga. 
Sryuipium spathulatum, Br. Prod., p.569; DC. Prod., vol. vii. p. 33 ; Benth, 
Fl. Austral., vol, iv. p. 17. 
S. bellidifolium, Sonder in Plant. Preiss., vol. i. p. 876. 
Comparatively very few species of the most curious genus 
Stylidium have been cultivated in England, though it is one 
of the largest in Australia, numbering in Bentham’s Flora 
of that continent, eighty-three species; of these many are 
very beautiful plants, and all remarkable for the irritability 
of the column of the style and stamens, which remains curved 
down from the perianth till touched at the bend, when it 
Springs up with elastic force, scattering the pollen; an 
arrangement doubtless intended to secure cross-impregnation, 
by causing the insects which may visit one flower to carry 
its pollen to another. Altogether some twenty species have 
been in cultivation at one time and another, of which ten 
have been figured in this work, but I very much doubt 
whether more than three or four could now be mustered in 
the United Kingdom, so little interest is shown by horticul- 
turists in any but showy plants. 3 
FEBRUARY Ist, 1872. 
