Tas. 6263. 
LIBERTIA panicuata. 
Native of South-East Australia. 
Nat. Ord. Intprex:—Tribe CyrrtiEe. 
Genus Lipertia, Spreng. (Benth. Fl. Austral. vol, vi. p. 412). 
Liertia paniculata; rhizomate brevi, caule breviusculo, foliis distichis basi 
imbricatis elongato-linearibus acuminatis planiusculis carinatis striato- 
nervosis marginibus levibus, scapo 1}-8-pedali stricto erecto compresso- 
angulato ramoso subglanduloso glabrove, ramis suberectis floriferis umbel- 
latis, bracteis me mbranaceo-scariosis erectis inferioribus elongatis vaginanti- 
bus subulatis, superioribus brevioribus, pedicellis ineequilongis, perianthii 
segmentis obovato-oblongis albidis, filamentis infra medium connatis. 
L. paniculata, Spreng. Syst. v.i. p. 168. Benth. Fl. Austral. vol. vi. p. 413. 
Stsyrincuivum paniculatum, Brown, Prod. p.305; FP. Muell. Fragment, vol. vii. p.91. 
Reyrarmra paniculata, Brown l.c. Addend. 
Nemartostiema paniculatum, Dietr. Sp. Pl. vol. ii. p. 510. 
A very elegant and free-flowering greenhouse plant, which 
has been long cultivated at Kew, having been raised from 
New South Wales seeds. It flowers early in spring. The 
genus to which it belongs is confined to Australia, New 
Zealand, and extra-tropical South America, and contains only 
3 or 4 species; it is thus one of several instances of a close 
botanical relationship between these distant countries. In 
North America the genus is represented by its near ally 
Sisyrinchium, and which it so much resembles that Brown, 
Who first described this species, referred it to that genus, a 
view adopted by F. Mueller, though abandoned by Brown 
in the Addenda to his Prodromus. Bentham keeps it distinct on 
the grounds adduced by Brown, to which he adds that of the 
inflorescence. ‘The umbellate appearance of the inflorescence 
is due to the common peduncle on which the pedicels are 
arranged being very short indeed ; a close examination shows 
that each pedicel has a bracteole affixed to it, as in other 
LIridee (see Benth. /. c.) a ee 
R. paniculata is a native of various hilly districts of New 
South Wales and of the Australian Alps in Victoria. _ 
Drscr. Rootstock short, terminated by a tuft of distichous 
