118 Noue Litteratnr. 



Mneller, Ferd., Baron von, Note on tlie Araucaria of New Guinea. (From 



„The Victorian Natui'alist". 1887. December.) 



Among the plants of striking interest, observed by Messrs. Cuth- 

 bertson and Sayer during their ascent of Mount Obree, one of the 

 foremost is the coniferous tall tree, occupying rocky declivities at ele- 

 vations from 6000 feet upwards. The careful examination of a fruit- 

 bearing branchlet reveals the identity of this „Pine" with the Arau- 

 caria Cunningharai of tropical and sub-tropical eastern Australia, so 

 well known here also as one of the noblest of our park- and garden- 

 trees. Dr. B e c c a r i , when ascending Mount Arfak in Dutch New 

 Guinea, came across the same Araucaria, which he likewise pronounced 

 (already in 1877) as not distinct from A. Cunninghami ; but he noticed 

 it at heighta from about 3000 to 4000 feet, though the Italian explorer 

 reached an altitude of fully 6000 feet. The occurrence of this Arau- 

 caria, on mountains so very widely apart in the great Papuan Island, 

 seems to indicate, that much of the highland-country there is likely 

 occupied by this Pine, which fact, — if it could be established, — would 

 be of geologic significance and otherwise also be of physiographic 

 importance. Prof. David Don, so long ago as 1888 (Transact. Linn. 

 Society of London XVIII, 164) considered it not improbable, ,that the 

 interior of New Guinea might afford a species of Araucaria", an anti- 

 cipation now so extensively realised. Mr. Sayer found the branchlets 

 less vaguely spreading and more distichous, than in the ordinary state 

 of this tree in Australia. The Araucaria Balansae from New Caledonia 

 is closely akin to A. Cunninghami, as characterised in Australia and 

 New Guinea ; but the seed-bearing rhacheoles are more circular in 

 outline, their terminal portion extending fully across to the lateral 

 membranous expansions, and ending in a less recurved spinular appen- 

 dage. Here it may aptly further be noted, that Araucaria Rulei be- 

 came first described in Lindley's Gardeners' Chronicle , for 1861, 

 when also of the typical form a Xylographie illustration was furnished 

 already. The staminate and pistillate rhacheoles of Coniferae are in 

 every respect comparable to those of Cycadeae. Finally it may be 

 mentioned, that the length of the spinular appendage of the seed- 

 bearing rhacheoles in Araucaria Cunninghami is subject to considerable 

 Variation. 



Miieller, Ferd., Baron von, Definitions of two new Australian Plants. 

 (From the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 1887. 

 October.) 



CheilanthesClelandi. 



Dwarf, stipes shining, dark-brown, almost glabrous; fronds small, 

 semilanceolar-deltoid in outline, bipinnate, greyish-green ; rhachis beset 

 with very short, spreading, somewhat glandulär hairs ; segments of 

 frond broadly linear, sessile, almost blunt, flat, minutely crenate- 

 serrulate, glabrous, the terminal segment somewhat elongate ; indusium 

 membranous, extending broadly and uninterruptedly along the whole 

 lower margin of the fei-tile segments; sori minute. dispersed, one at 

 the Upper end of each of the prominent pinnately divergent veins, 

 each separately lodged in a sinus of the serrature. 



On Caroona Hill in the Gawler Ranges, 45 miles due west from the 

 head of Spencer Gulf; Dr. Cleland. 



The only specimen available for examination is devoid of its 

 rhizome ; the stipes is about as long as the frond ; the latter reaches 

 a breadth of two inches and a length of three and a half, it is 

 remarkably pale, particularly so in contrast to the dark-brown rhachis ; 

 the segments are nearly one-eighth inch broad, the indusium covering 

 in close appression the greater portion of the soriferous segments ; 

 sporangia very few in each sorus, almost unprovided with stalklets, 



This Singular fern combines the indusium of a Pteris with the dis- 

 position of the sori of a Cheilanthes, no threadlike receptacle uniting 

 the sporangia into continuity, the latter being perfectly concealed. A 



