6 AUSTRALIAN PLANTS. 



opposite to or alternate with the leaves, hardly of their length ; three- to 

 ten-flowered, covered with short, gland-bearing hairs; segments of the 

 five-parted calyx lanceolate, gradually narrowed upwards, about equal 

 in length with the capsule, and half as long as the whitish petals ; 

 styles three, divided at the base, its divisions filiform, incurved at the 

 top ; seeds egg-shaped, clathrate, 



Hab, On the moist gravelly margins of the lakes on the Murray 

 Eiver, towards Eustone. 



This is the first extratropical species of this section of ]}rosera with 

 which we are acquainted. It approaches B, Mnlay^oniana^ from Cochin 

 China. This is however only one of many tropical forms of plants 

 which, transgressing the torrid zone, advance as far south as the Mur- 

 ray Desert. 



IV. POLYGALE^. 



16. Polygala veronicea^^ F. Muell. ; stem suffruticose at the base, 

 erect or diffused, nearly terete, hardly branched, as well as the pedun- 

 cles and pedicels puberulous ; leaves alternate, close to each other, soon 

 smooth, the lower ones ovate or round, the upper ones lanceolate, acute, 

 apiculate, net-veined, on very short petioles, and with a slightly recurved 

 margin ; racemes lateral and terminal, few-flowered ; middle bracteole 

 ovate-lanceolate, longer than the lateral ones, but much shorter than 

 the pedicel; exterior sepals spreading, the interior ones ovate, con- 

 tracted into a cuneate base, blunt, apiculate, glabrous, veined, of the 

 length of the crested keel, and likewise of the roundish, obcordate, 

 broad-winged, glabrous capsule ; ovary tapering into a very short stalk ; 

 seeds ovate, sparingly hairy, twice the length of the strophiole. 



Hab. In grassy or gravelly places, from King Kiver to the Goul- 



boume Kiver. 



It is remarkable that since Brown noticed, in the Appendix to 

 Flinders* Voyage, the presence of the genus Folygala in Australia, no 

 Australian species has until now been described, 



17. Comespenna (§ Disepalum) polygaloides,\ F. Muell. ; smooth; 

 leaves approximated, flat, narrow or linear-lanceolate, acute, glaucous ; 

 raceme somewhat dense, purple; pedicels shorter than the flowers; 

 lateral bracteoles about half as long as the intermediate one; lobes of 



• Allied to some Asiatic species. — Ed. 



f xVpparcntly very nearly allied to C virgata^ Lab. — Ed. 



