858 



NOTES ON SOME PLANTS FEOM NOKFOLK ISLAND. 



By Baron Von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S. 



Last year, when offering to this Journal the description of 

 Asplenium Rohinsonii, (pp. 289-290), I had occasion to refer 

 also to Pterocarpus australis from the same locality as likely 

 belonging to Wistaria or Millettia, which two genera might well be 

 combined. This supposition has proved to be correct, because Mr. 

 Isaac Eobinson has succeeded after much search to find of the 

 large climber, assigned by Endlicher to Pterocarpus, at last a single 

 fruit, which is completely in accord with Millettia, as will be seen 

 from the following notes : — 



Pod (the only one seen) ellipsoid, turgid, ending gradually into 

 an almost subulate apex, tapering also at the base, tardily and 

 imperfectly dehiscent, glabrescent and brownish outside, including 

 the apex, 8|- in. long, nearly l^- in. broad ; valves hard, thick, 

 almost lignescent ; cavity divided by cross-partitions between the 

 seeds, invested by a whitish fibrous membrane. Seeds only two 

 ripened, measuring f-1 in., almost globular, but next to the septa 

 more or less truncate, yellowish brown, smooth ; hilum much 

 elongated, linear ; testa coriaceous, pallid inside ; embryo emitting 

 a strong odour, when dry of horny hardness, whitish fresh, turning 

 livid ; cotyledons nearly equal ; radicle about f in. long, ellipsoid, 

 placed obliquely, only a small portion emerging beyond the cotyle- 

 dons. Several ovules remain undeveloped, therefore the fruit may 

 ripen sometimes more than two seeds. 



Thus we have also now become aware that Millettia australis 

 approaches closely M. nm/asperuia : the leaflets are, however, almost 

 blunt, and reticulated by more prominent veins ; the stalklets of 

 the flowers are shorter, the bracts narrower, the calyx-lobes shorter 

 and less pointed, the pod produced is into a longer apex, and not 

 velvety outside. It may, however, here be mentioned that the late 

 M. de la Camera insisted on the occurrence of two kinds of Wistaria 

 on the Eichmond Eiver, one with pods nearly glabrous outside, 

 containing more numerous seeds of hardly half the size of those of 

 the true M. mei/asi>erma. He found this Wistaria — which, in memory 

 of his zealous collecting efforts in the primeval forests of East 

 Australia, I wish to call as a species or variety Millettia or Wistaria 

 Camerana — to climb up to a height of eighty feet or even more ; the 

 flowering specimens from the Eichmond Eiver show also consider- 

 able differences of the length of the calyx-lobes, which may indicate 

 specific discrepancies. 



While offering these remarks on a long-misunderstood plant of 

 Norfolk Island, it may here not be out of place to note that the 

 great fern investigator, Mr. J. G. Baker, refers to Asplenium 

 Robinsonii as the doubtful recorded variety of A. squannilatum of 

 Hooker's Spec. Filicum, iii. 88, the origin of which had remained 

 for very many years obscure ; this particular fern, now shown to be 

 a native of Norfolk Island, is evidently not identical with Blume's 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 23. [Dec, 1885.] 2 a 



