350 Neue Litteratur. 



Aeschlnom e n e a spf ra . 

 Liime, sp. plant, 713. 

 Port Darwin; N. Holtze. 



Under the designation oligarthra, a variety of this plant or a closely 

 allied species, as gathered recently by Mr. Holtze jun., can be distin- 

 guished from the typical Asiatic and African form in somewhat broader 

 fruits, consisting only of one or two or three pieces, conspicuously crisped 

 at the margin, but not mach asperous at the sides; moreover, the corolla 

 of the Australian plant is hardly beset with aay hairlets, while the lower 

 petals along the outer margin are rigidulously fringed, which reminds of 

 what Wight and Arnott stated in this respect about A. Surattenais. Our 

 plant needs yet further study in free nature. 



Swainsona cyclocarpa. 

 Laxe, scantily beset with very short hairlets; leaves generally 5—7 

 foliolate; leaflets from cuneate- to obcorrlate-ovate; flowers several in eaeh 

 raeeme, rather small, on very short stalklets; lobes of the calyx semi- 

 lanceolar-deltoid, shorter thau the tube ; petals glabrous, upwards viulet or 

 lilac-coloured, the lower almost semiorbicular, bluut, hardly longer than 

 the two lateral petals ; style imperfectly ciliolate at the inner side towards 

 the upper end, peneillate behind the stigma; fruit comparatively small, 

 hippociepic or- annular-curved, uudular- and rugular-asperous, glabreseent, 

 turgid, devoid of a conspieuous stipe, longpointed at the apex, imperfectly 

 bilocular by intrusion of the valves from the upper suture ; seeds severnl, 

 brownish. 



Near the Macdonell-Ranges ; Rev. W. P. Schwärt z. 

 Plant about one foot long, slender-rooted, and therefore perhaps annual, 

 although the specimens obtained may represent first year's seedlings only. 

 Leaflets V« — 1 inch long. Stipules sometimes considerably enlarged, but 

 often small. Calyx hardly above l /e inch long. Petals measuring about 

 x /s inch in length, the upper without very conspieuous callosities and all 

 without twists. Fruits nearly or fully 1 inch long, but from its strong 

 curvature appearing to be much shorter, scarcely 1 h inch thick, lacunous- 

 foveolar and with sharp prominences, pale, seemingly indehiscent. Seeds 

 shining when well matured, smooth. 



This species is singularly well marked by the almost circularly curved 

 peculiarly rugulous fruit. In sorae respects it approaches S. brachycarpa, 

 in others S. oh'gophylla and S. occidentalis. Dr. Wawra described in 

 the „Oesterr. Botan. Zeitschrift" of 1881, at page 69, a Swainsona as 

 S. Murrayana from the northern regions of our colony. 



Geococcus pusillus J. Drummond and Harvey. 

 In calcareous and saudy desert-Iocalities from West -Australia to the 

 Murray- anti Lachlan-Kivers. 



This remarkable plant is mentioned here, to draw attention to the 



possibility, as indicated already by Bentham, that it may be the stem- 



less State, fruiting sparsely Underground, of a plant developing othervvise, 



like most Cruciferae, its "stein, infloresceuce and fruits in the ordiuary 



mauner. Its foliage is not unlike the radical leaves of Sisymhrium carda- 



■minoides, with which it is moreover not rarely associated. Indeed, a 



Brazilian Cardamin.e of ordinary habit has been shown by Grisebach 



many years ago (in „Aphaudluugen der Akademie von Goettingen"), to 



produce occasionally an abnormal state, resembling much our Geococcus, 



from the same root. But although the Italian Morisia hypogaea is in 



external appearance also very much like our Geococcus pusillus, that 



plant has never yet been traced to a stage of higher development, and 



seems therefore not to have ariseu from mere dimorphism. 



lleverchon, P., Catalogue raisonne des plantes vasculaires du departement de 



la Mayenne. (Extrait du Bulletin de la Soen'te d'etudes scientifiques d'Angers. 



Anuee* 1890.) 8°. 101 pp. Angers (imprim. et libr. Germain et Grassin) 



1892. 



Phaenologie : 

 Jahresbericht der forstlich phänologischen Stationen Deutschlands. Heraus- 

 gegeben im Auftrag des Vereins deutscher forstl. Versuchsanstalten von der 



