Neue Litter atur. 225 



to B. Maclayana, but the seed of the latter is conspicuously broader 

 still. 



New Guinea is almost aure to yield from some of its Bassias and 

 other sapotaceous trees new sources for Gutta-Percha.] 



Mneller, Ferd. Baron von, Description of a new Cycadeous plant from 

 South-Western Australia. (Extra print Irom the Victorian ,Chemist and 

 Druggist". June. 1885. 



[Encephalartos Dyeri (Macrozamia Dyeri, F. V. M. MSC.) — Leaves 

 large, not distinctly twisted before expansion ; petioles broad, elongated, 

 triangulär, convex above ; segments on each side about fifty , compa- 

 ratively broad, quite flat, toothless, pungent-pointed, streaked by 13 — 15 

 nerves, without very conspicuous articular callosity at the base, but 

 there evidently decurrent; the lower segments gradually abbreviated, 

 but none reduced to spines ; male strobile very long, ellipsoid-cylindri- 

 cal ; antheriferous scales thick , extremely numerous , the lower blunt 

 and abbreviated, those towards the middle of the strobile short-pointed, 

 those towards and at the summit attenuated into a pungent ascendent 

 apex of much less length than that of the obovate-cuneate antheri- 

 ferous area; strobilar fruit large, glabrous, ovate in outline; its stalk 

 somewhat covered with a deciduous wooUy indument; its lower scales 

 simply or hardly acute at the summit, the scales towards the middle 

 of the strobile short-acuminated ; those towards and at the summit of 

 the fruit gradually terminating in a üat pungent ascendent acumen 

 of less length than that of the almost cordate turgid laminar portion 

 of the scale. 



On the coast at Esperance-Bay. 



The material for elucidating this Zamia was obtained through the 

 kind mediation of Mr. W. K n i g h t and Mr. W. W e b b of King 

 George's Sound ; it consists of two leaves , a -well-developed antheri- 

 ferous spike and a semi-mature strobile. Additional specimens and 

 lurther observations on the only known place of growth may affect 

 hereafter to some extent the descriptive notes now given; but unless 

 the peculiar conditions of clime and soil on the isolated spot of dis- 

 covery should account for the discrepancies , this new Zamia or En- 

 cephalartos can most readily be distinguished from the only other 

 western congener by the larger size of the leaves, with stalks over an 

 inch broad, by the greater width of the leaf-segments, which generally 

 attains fully half an inch, by the very obvious decurrence of the seg- 

 ments without ready indication of callous articulation , by the much 

 greater length but actually lesser width of the male strobile , which 

 indeed becomes nearly two feet long when perfected , by the smaller 

 and proportionately narrower antheriferous scales, of which even the 

 Upper ones are produced into a very much shorter acumen, the latter 

 characteristic applying as well to the fruit-scales , which moreover 

 approach not an anchor-shaped form , at least in the young state. 

 Mature fruit may exhibit still more marked differences. 



Visitors to the lonely place , where this palm-pine grows , are des- 

 cribing its stem procumbent. Whether this is owing to frequent 

 oceanic blasts, to which this Zamia is exposed, or whether this is a 

 character not dependent on extraneous influences, we must learn through 

 further enquiries and observations. Also this species exudes a raucila- 

 ginous fluid, which indurates into a kind of Tragacanth ; the occurrence 

 of this kind of gum on cycadeae is mentioned in former pages of this 

 Journal, when some eastern congeners were described. 



It is probably an identical Zamia, which has been noticed between 

 Cape Arid and Cape Pasley on the western extremity of the great 

 Bight, but from whence no specimens have been obtained. The so 

 widely distributed other S. W. Australian congener seems not to reach 

 westward beyond Cape Riche. Other-wise no species grows nearer to 

 our new one than the Central Australian Encephalartos Macdonnellii, 



