Teratoluglcal Notes. 171 



the limit of strt'uiu iutluenee, while yet obtaining large size, the 

 rooting being good. On the Hawthorn bank of the Barker's Eoad 

 tram cutting, near the Yarra, there are two shrubby specimens of 

 E. rostrata, which bloom generously every year; the leaves, flowers, 

 and fruit are typical, but the buds often bear conical opercula. 

 These lowly specimens, growing as they are on the outcropping 

 Silurian strata, which dips at an angle of about 70 degrees, must 

 have their roots confined to the bed planes. Yet on comparatively 

 unfriendly ground, with roots unusually confined, and the general 

 habit altered, they produce abundant fruit, some of which may be 

 on branches only two feet from the ground. One of the plants is 

 12 feet, and the other 6 feet, high. 



Fruit. 



Bifurcated Peduncles. — Bifurcated peduncles, or, alternatively, 

 double umbels aie rare. The specimens shown (PL XIII., 1) 

 is from a branch of K. elaeophora collected at Stawell. 

 There were many adventitious shoots on tlie upper branches 

 of the tree whence the specimen was taken, and it appears 

 to be in transition stage, the phyllotaxis being that of the juvenile 

 plant, near the base, and up to the middle, while towards 

 the apex the leaves becom.e alternate and petiolate, though lacking 

 the length of those of adult foliage. Near the middle of the twig 

 are a pair of opposite leaves, with petioles much longer than even 

 those of the normally petiolate leaves of the species, and in the 

 axil of each there is a double umbel. Although the reduced number 

 of fruits suggests bifurcation of the peduncle of a single umbel, 

 I prefer to regard it as a case of proliferation, as the umbels in 

 normal axils on this tree were in many places sparsely fruited, and 

 in each of the affected axils there was one peduncle longer than the 

 other. Normally there should be in the axils of the alternate petio- 

 late leaves, simple pedunculate umbels, each of which should have 

 six fruits. It will be observed that these two long-petiolate leaves 

 are abnormally narrow; they are naVrower than any I have seen 

 on a tree of this species. I have seen double umbels, also in E. 

 goniocalyx. E . elatoiyhora, and E. ohliqua. 



Connation. — Lateral connation of fruits or even syncarpy might 

 reasonably be expected in some species of eucalypts, owing to there 

 being many almost stalkless fruits forming the umbel, or where 

 short-stalked fruits are few but large, as in E. globulus, etc., but 

 the occurrence is rare. Irregularity of shape through mutual 



