14 



BEIEF EEMAEKS ON SOME EAEE TASMANIAN 



PLANTS. 

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



Goprosma Petriei, Cheeseman in the transact, of the N.Z. 

 Institute, XVIII, 316 (1886). 



Under this name I wish to bring under notice what appears 

 to be a new Tasmanian Coprosma, lately found as of rare 

 occurrence by Mr. T. B. Moore on the highlands east of 

 Mount Tyndall. It has the same very depressed matted 

 growth as C. repens (C. pumila), also very small leaves and 

 terminal small-sized fruits. But the leaves in all the speci- 

 mens received are decidedly pointed, indeed ovate-lanceolar, 

 and the fruit is beautifully blue outside, a characteristic 

 which separates this species from all other Australian kinds, 

 and which is not likely subject to variation. Mr. Thomas 

 Cheeseman in his excellent review of the 31 New Zealandian 

 species of this genus distinguished by him, mentions two as 

 having fruits blueish outside, namely C. parviflora and C. 

 acerosa, the former otherwise very different from our plant, 

 the latter of much larger size, with puberulous branchlets 

 and longer but narrower leaves. Nevertheless C. Petriei is 

 described as varying in the outside colour of the fruit, red in 

 the Nelson, blue in the Otago province, but possibly two 

 species became thus confused, in which regard already some 

 indications are given in the transact, of the N.Z. Inst. XIX., 

 251 and 252. As the flowers of this plant are not yet known, 

 it remains for some future opportunity to confirm the 

 differences existing in this respect between C. repens and C. 

 Petriei. The fruits are globular or verging into an oval 

 form ; so far as seen on this occasion they ripen only one, 

 rarely two seeds. The embryo is only half as long as the 

 albument. Should the Tasmanian plant, after the flowers 

 have become known, prove a peculiar species, then such 

 ought to be distinguished under the finder's name. 

 Panax Gunnii — 



The fruit of this rare shrub was also for the first time 

 obtained for me by Mr. T. B. Moore, who gathered it in 

 deep shady gorges at Mount Lyell, on the Canyon Eiver, the 

 Franklin Eiver and on a tributary of the Pieman's Eiver. It 

 is succulent, about J-inch broad, renate-roundish, turgid, 

 black outside, at the summit five-denticulated and impressed, 

 so that the styles are hardly visible ; the two nutlets inside 



