G8 NOTES ON PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO SYDNEY, 



specific name, taxifolia, was given to it by Allan Cunningham. 

 Schauer, however, described it as D. laxifolia ; and seems to have 

 considered the name taxifolia a misprint ; for Bentham adds a note 

 to his description in the " Flora Australiensis" (Vol. 3, p. 12), in 

 which he says, " Schauer was mistaken in supposing that Allan 

 Cunningham's specific name of taxifolia was a misprint ; it was 

 intended to allude to the pecular bifarious arrangement of the 

 leaves, in luxurious branches." In the third volume of the 

 " Flora Australiensis," in which the genus Darvrinia is described, 

 only twenty-three species are enumerated. Von Mueller, however, 

 in his census recently published, gives thirty-seven species. It 

 must not be forgotten that most of the volumes of the "Flora 

 Australiensis " were published many years ago. This third volume, 

 for instance, eighteen years. Perhaps then, I may be allowed to 

 refer here to the great debt of gratitude that I think is owing by 

 all botanists, but especially by Australian botanists, to Baron von 

 Mueller, by whose untiring energy they have been kept acquainted 

 with all discoveries of new genera and species, since the publication 

 of that work. 



Darwinia fascicularis, of which species I speak more particularly 

 in this paper, is very common about our coast line, being especially 

 plentiful between Coogee and Botany. It belongs to the order 

 Myrtacece ; and is a low-lying, half decumbent shrub ; having its 

 leaves heath-like, crowded and nearly terete ; its infloresence in 

 terminal heads of ten to twenty flowers ; presenting a rather 

 curious appearance by having, often on the same head, some of its 

 flowers white, while the others are red ; the red colour, however, 

 extends only to the limb of the corolla, the tube, in all cases, being 

 white. If, as suggested in my last paper, the corolla is slit open, 

 and spi'ead out by small pins on a flat piece of cork, its five pointed 

 lobes, with its ten stamens and shining black, gobular anthers, 

 alternating with ten staminodia, which are often tipped with 

 crimson rudimentary anthers, give it, especially under a low 

 microscopic power, a very beautiful and gem-like appearance. 



The genus, even if not otherwise interesting, will always be so 

 by bringing to memory the name of one of the most illustrious 



