Flora of Australia. 9 



ovary forming a 2-celled capsule with one seed in each cell. 

 The leaves are like those of Micrantheum, but are in twos as 

 well as in threes. In the absence of srood material the general 

 resemblance to J/, ericoides naturally led Mueller to place it in 

 that genus. As can be seen from the original description 

 quoted Ijeneath, Mueller's material was too imperfect for him 

 to distinguish the peculiarities of the male and female flowers, 

 and of the fruit. 



MiCRANTHEUM DEMISSUM, F. v. M. In Vict. Nat., vol. vii., 



p. 67, 1890. 



Dwarf : branchlets beset with short spreading hairlets ; 

 leaves ovate or lanceolar-elliptic, generally soon almost glabrous, 

 at the margin hardly or narrowly recurved ; pistillate flowers 

 axillary, solitary : sepals longer than the pedicels, almost 

 elliptic ; fruit hardly thrice longer than the sepals, nearly ovate, 

 at the base blunt, towards the summit more attenuated : seeds 

 brownish, shining ; strophiola pale, turgid, nearly semi-ovate. 

 about thrice shorter than the seed. 



Closely allied to M. ericoides, but still more dwarfed, the 

 leaves mostly broader, the pedicels usually shorter, the sepals 

 somewhat larger, the styles less elongated and the fruit smaller ; 

 perhaps the staminate flowers will also prove different. 



M. hexandra, to which the South Australian species was in 

 the first instance referred, chiefly on geographic considerations, 

 is a tall highland-plant, larger in all its parts, thus already quite 

 distinct, it produces stamens up to nine in number. 



Argophyllum Nullumense, R. T. Baker. Proc. Linn. 8oc. 

 N. S. Wales, xxii., 1897, p. 23L> ; xxiv., 1899, p. 439 = 

 A. NiTiDUM, Forst. (Saxifrageae). 



It is not possible to distinguish this plant from A. nitichnn 

 by any well-defined, constant characters. Distinctions derived 

 from the shape and appearance of the leaves are rarely wholly 

 reliable. The first Australian specimens appear to have been 

 identified by Baron von Mueller, and the plant was recorded 

 under this name in Bailey's Queensland Flora. 



