1 1 2 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



QuiNTINIA MACGREGORII. 



This occurs high up on Mount Suckling, and is nearest to 

 Q. Fawkneri, but the leaves are larger and on much longer stalks, 

 the calyces are less angular, the style is much shorter, and the 

 fruit-valves are more emersed. 



BlOPHYTUM ALBIFLORUM. 



This was gathered on watercourses of Mount Obree. As the 

 name implies, it differs in its white petals from the few other 

 known congeners, but stands systematically near B. Reinwardti, 

 from which it is distinguishable further by leaflets more inequi- 

 lateral, of more sameness of colour on both sides, by longer 

 pedicels and by fruits nearly as broad as long. If Biophytum is 

 to merge into Oxalis, then our plant should receive the name 

 0. Papuana. 



NOTE ON THE WEST AUSTRALIAN FAN-PALM. 

 By Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M. & Ph.D., LL.D. F.R.S. 



It is known since the discovery of the Hammersley-Ranges, 

 fully thirty years ago, that a Livistona-Palm occurs on the Mill- 

 stream there, far isolated from any other species of that genus ; 

 but former incomplete specimens led to the surmise that this 

 palm might be identical with Livistona Marice, a species 

 restricted to the Palm-glen and several valleys of the Macdonnell- 

 Ranges in Central Australia. The last mentioned palm we 

 know now through Mr. J. Edgar, of the Rockhampton Botanic 

 Garden, to be, while in a young state of cultivation, much more 

 robust and upright in foliage than L. australis, besides the leaves 

 at the early age of the plant being of a " rich bronzy colour." 

 This particular characteristic seems neither to apply to the West- 

 Australian species, as ascertained by the Hon. Captain Phillips 

 and Mr. H. Keep from Sergeant J. Beresford, stationed near the 

 Hammersley-Ranges. Moreover, I have always found transmitted 

 fruitlets considerably larger than those of the genuine L. Afarice, 

 and further some minor differences exist also in the flowers of the 

 two species, as recently ascertained. The West-Australian Fan- 

 Palm has therefore now been named L. Alfredi, in honour of 

 H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, at whose nuptial festival the 

 Central Australian Palm became dedicated to the Princess Marie 

 of Russia. What applies to many other palms, holds good also 

 for L. Alfredi — namely, that the leaves are more strongly spinous 

 in the young than in the aged plant. Mr. Beresford records this 

 palm now also from the Fortescue-River and its tributaries, from 

 the sources of the Robe-River, and from Cave's Creek. 



