OCCASIONAL NOTES ON PLANTS INDIGENOUS IN 

 THE IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF SYDNEY. 



No. 9. 

 By E. Haviland, F.L.S. 



The plant forming the subject of this paper is Lyonsia reticulata. 

 It belongs to the order Apocynece. The order is not veiy largely- 

 represented in Australia ; affording but fourteen genera in all the 

 Australian Colonies; and the genus Lyonsia but ten species ; five 

 of which are found in N. S. Wales. Two of these, L. reticulata 

 and L, lilacina, in the County of Cumberland. Lyonsia reticulata 

 appears to me to be somewhat rare, or at all events not plentiful. 

 Of course the experience of other botanists may be different to my 

 own. I have however, for the last two years, made a very diligent 

 search for it, not only within six or seven miles of Sydney, but 

 also in the country about Parramatta. Yet I have found but 

 one plant, and that within a mile of Sydney. Fortunately I have 

 been able to obtain a good supply of flowers for study from that 

 plant. Dr. Woolls has since kindly informed me of one or two 

 other localities where it may be found. If I am correct in my 

 supposition that the plant is comparatively rare, it confirms my 

 previous experience, and what I suppose is the experience of 

 others, that as a rule, self-fertilised plants are so. Darwin points 

 to this probability, both in his *' Fertilization of Orchids," and his 

 *' Effects of Cross-fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom." In the 

 first mentioned work he says, " Whether any species which is now 

 never cross-fertilised, will be able to resist the evil eflects of long 

 continued self-fertilisation, so as to siirvive for as long an average 

 period as the other species of the same genera which are habitually 

 cross-fertilised, cannot of course be told." Lyonsia reticulata is a 

 strong climber, and appears, where it is found, to attach itself to 



