372 Neue Litteratur. 



The species is dedicated to G. Lue h mann, Esq., F.L.S., First Assistant 

 in the Phytologic Department here, who during many years has zealously 

 aided the researches of its founder, and who especially participated in 

 the laborious task of preparing the material for Mr. Graff's extensive 

 series of drawings, with the necessity of renewed investigations for characte- 

 ristics, and in revising the work of this accomplished artist prior to the 

 lithographic issue. 



B. Birchii includes as a variety B. Cornishiana. 



In Ascherson and Schweinf urth's „Illustration de la Flore 

 d'Egypte", p. 122 (1887) the genus Bassia of Allioni has also been duly 

 restored there for Koehia latifolia and K. muricata, whereas Boissier 

 in Ins „Flora Orientalis", IV, 924—927 (1879) acknowledges Bassia as a 

 section of Koehia in the place of Echinopsilon for six species. The priority 

 of the sa'solaceous over the sapotaeeous genus is therefore also elsevvhere 

 vindicated ; but in both instances, just quoted, Chenolea is still kept genri- 

 cally apart. The publication of the seventh decade of „Australian Salsola- 

 ceae" just now will afford an opportunity, to see with ease, how comple- 

 tely that genus merges into Bassia. To avoid the repetition of the name 

 Bassia latifolia in two Orders of plants , it might be desirable, to adopt 

 the species-name for the salsolaeeous plant from the genus Londesia (B. 

 Londesia), that untenable genus merely resting on this one species. 



Passingly it may here be noted , that the Chenopodium Buchanani, 

 described and illustrated in the „Transactions of the New Zealand In- 

 stitute", XXII, 447, pl. 32 (1890), ought to be transferred to Atriplex, 

 it being allied to A. prostratum. As just allusion is made to a plant 

 of New Zealand , some notes on the fruit of Hectorella may simul- 

 taneously be offered, as that genus pertains also to the öurvembryonatae, 

 the material being kiudly supplied bj- Donald Petrie, Esq., M.A., 

 F.L.S., of Dunedin. 



Ripe fruit almost globular or somewhat turbinate, membranous, nearly 

 -as long as the sepals, slightly surpassed by the petals , for some time 

 retaining the style and the usually bilobed stigma, bursting irregularly 

 from the summit, measuring about 1 le inch. Seeds ripening 2 — 4, ovate- 

 roundish, slightly compressed , smooth, outside shining-black, about 1 /i6 

 inch long. Albument scanty. Embryo imperfectly annular ; cotyledons 

 hardly longer than the radicle. The affinity of tlie genus to Lyallia, as 

 indicated by Sir Joseph Hook er, is now confirmed also from carpo- 

 logic characteristics ; indeed the alliance is so close, that Hectorella might 

 be regarded as a section of that genus. The fruit aecords also with that 

 of Pycnophyllum. 



Helipterum Jesseni. 



Annual, dwarf, extensively or scantily beset with short hairlets ; leaves 

 numerous, filiform-liuear, rather blunt , the upper gradually reduced to 

 bracts ; headlets constantly quite small , singly terminating stems or 

 branchlets, almost hemispheric; outer involucral bracts comparatively broad, 

 blunt, shining, pale and some partially brovvn-tinged, many soon relaxed ; 

 inner bracts expanding into a short constantly yellow lamina; flowers all 

 bisexual, some of the more central only imperfectly fruit-forming ; corollas 

 spreadingly short lobed; fertile fruits very small, but rather broadish, 

 papillular-rough, compressed, occasionally with one prominent angle; 

 pappus-bristlets generally 8 — 12, in their whole length plumous-ciliolar, at 

 the base slightly connected, quite white or at and near the upper eud 

 yellowish. 



Widely distributed through the extra-tropic desert regions. 



The exaet systematic position of this plant has been long misunderstood. 

 When in 1848 it tirst was collected by nie, I could not identify it with 

 described species, notably H. hyalospermum, aud thus dedicated it to a 

 University-friend, Dr. Carl Jessen, the subsequent Professor in Greifs- 

 wald, and this name passed into the Linuaea of 1852, p. 519; but Sonder, 

 •on that occasion, united the plant with H. hyalospermum, which opinion 

 was also adopted by Bentham in 1866 („Fl. Austrat.", III. 644). This 



