BY J. H. MAIDEX AND E. BETCHE. 741 



locality "Botany Bay" is incredible; the poor sandhills and 

 swamps of Botany Bay are a very unlikely locality for it, but the 

 rich semitropical brush-forests of the National Park are within 

 a few miles' distance of Botany Bay, so that the mistake is of 

 easy explanation. The chief characteristics of the plant are the 

 blue, or rather purplish-blue, fruits and the acuminate leaves. 

 The leaves vary from narrow-lanceolate to ovate, and from deep 

 to pale green, but they are alwa3's distinctly acuminate (" folia e 

 forma anguste lanceolata in late ovatam vergunt, sed semper in 

 acumen acutum exeunt, nunc saturatius nunc pallidius virescunt " 

 (Mueller). It is a rather small white-barked tree flowering in a 

 ver}^ youthful state, so that it may be at times mistaken for a 

 shrub. 



E. Coolminiana, C. Moore, is probably a form of E. cyanocarpa^ 

 but the trees, both of which have been cultivated for many years 

 in the Sydne}^ Botanic Gardens, are very different in habit and 

 horticulturally quite distinct, though we cannot point out a 

 difference of specific value. E. Coolminiana is a shy-fruiting tree 

 with a dense heavy foliage; the leaves are thick, ovate and shortly 

 or scarcely acuminate. E. cijanocarpa is a graceful loose-foliaged 

 tree with thinner, narrower and much more acuminate leaves. 



In the same volume of the 'Fragmenta' (ix. p. 146) Mueller 

 described another Eugenia from the Tweed River (Carron) and 

 from Rockingham Bay (Dallachy), and provisionally named it 

 E. papUioiiuyn (from Dallachy's note that he saw numerous 

 butterflies swarming round the flowers), but, as in E. cyanocarpa, 

 he remained in doubt whether the name should stand as a species, 

 or a variety of E. oleosa. The native name of the tree is given 

 as •' Coolmiu," which suggests identity with C. Moore's E. Cool- 

 miniana^ but the leaves are described as imperforate (''foliis 

 crassioribus igitur imperforatis " : Mueller), a character irrecon- 

 cilable with E. Coolmi7iia7ia. Of course native names are not 

 by any means reliable guides; the aborigines, who doubtless eat 

 the fruits of most Eugenias, may apply the name to several species 

 with similar fruits; or the individual who imparts the information 

 may not differentiate between similar species, especially when the 



