THE BOTANY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 141 
each branch terminating in a dense corymb of snow-white flowers, from 
nine inches to a foot in diameter; the leaves are from two to three 
inches long, and about an inch wide, jagged and sinuate at the edges, 
green and hairy above and white below. The most perfect form of this 
plant is to have a five-parted white petal-like calyx; five small cup-shaped 
petals, five coloured purple anthers, opening at both sides to discharge 
the pollen, and five barren petal-like anthers, alternate with the fertile 
ones ; the styles are five in number, free next the germens, but partly 
or rather slightly adhering above; the carpels are free, five in number 
when perfect, but rarely more than three are produced; they each con- 
tain a single seed, which is large when compared with the other Aus- 
tralian genera of this order; the carpels are curiously crested. Besides 
this, which I consider the most perfect form of the plant, there are 
many female plants which are without anthers of any kind, and many 
that have only petals like anthers. All the forms bear seeds only spa- 
ringly; those forms where the anthers are wanting sometimes bear 
more seed than the perfect ones, but among the whole there is not one 
seed produced for every thousand flowers; the plants creep by their 
roots and grow in great numbers together, sometimes spreading over 
acres*, 
The genus Hibiscus, of the Natural Order Ma/vacez, produces several 
fine species in the country travelled over. The first new species I met 
with in the deep rocky gully which runs into **Cockleshell Plains ;” 
this species grows two feet high, with trifid deeply indented leaves, the 
divisions linear, and indented at their edges; the flowers are rose- 
coloured, marked with deep crimson spots at the base of the petals; this 
beautiful species grows also in the Valley of the Lakes and at Champion — 
Bay, where it was first found by Lieutenant Elliot, the officer in com- 
mand of the troops first sent there; the plant is known by the name 
of Elliott's Hibiscus. 
A yellow Hibiscus, with trifid filiform leaves and strong woody stems 
four or five inches in diameter, and growing twelve or fifteen feet high, 
is found in abundance on the sand-hills near the barracks at Champion 
Bay. Another new species, with pale blue flowers and very hispid 
leaves and flower-stalks, grows on Moresby’s Range, near the White 
* The anthers are turned, and although the carpels appear to be free there is a con- _ 
SNe kaaa ety ipe pon As a genus, the plant is not distinct from Ru- 
lingia 
