Triomfes.] Lxvii. epackide^. 247 



branches sometimes prostrate or straggling, sometimes surroiimling the 

 trunks of dead or decaying trees, climbing to the height of 20 to 30 ft., and 

 covering them witli a dense mass of green foliage and bright crimson flowers. 

 Leaves shortly petiolate, oblong, obtuse, bordered by a few obtuse, callous 

 teeth, rather thick, obscurely veined, mostly 4 to 8 lines long, riowcrs in 

 the upper axils, pendulous from long slender peduncles. Bracts very small 

 mid distant, acute and ciliate, 1 or 2 of the uppermost sometimes rather 

 larger and close to the calyx. Sepals about 2 lines long, acute, ciliate. 

 Corolla-tube J to 1 in. long, slightly ventricose, and contracted at the 

 throat; lobes very small, broad, obtuse.' Capsule twice as long as the calyx. 

 DC. Prod. vii. 766 ; Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. i. 262 ; Ejiacris cerintkoides, Labill. 

 PLNov. Holl. i. 43. t. 59. 



Tasmania. Recherche Bay. Labillardiere ; sides of Mount 'Wellington, and dense 

 forests about Macquarrie Harbour, Milligan, Gitnn ; Mount Lapeyrouse, C. Stuart. 



P- Mueller, Fragm. vi. 69, describes the placentas as being " ex apice columella; arcuato- 

 peudulse" as in Lracophyllum. lu the three flowers from different specimens which I 

 examined, I found the placentation precisely as in Epacris, the style inserted in a tubular 

 depression, rearhing nearly halfway down the ovary, and the placentas attached immediately 

 Wow, scarcely stipitate, covered with ovules, the upper ones more or less ascending, the lower 

 ones more or less pendulous. 



20. COSMELIA, R. Br. 



Corolla-tube cylindrical ; lobes 5, spreading towards the end, imbricate but 

 not contorted in the bud. Filaments inserted near the throat, flattened ; 

 anthers adnate in tlie upper half, included in the corolla-tube. Hypogynous 

 disk short, annular. Ovary 5-celled, with numerous ovules in each cell on a 

 placenta attached near the base of the axis ; style inserted in a rather deep 

 tubular depression in the ovary.— Shrub, the branches covered with sheathuig 

 pungent-pointed leaves. Flowers red, solitary, terminating axillary branch- 

 lets or peduncles covered with leaf-like bracts, which pass gradually into tUe 

 sepals and form an involucre round them. 



The genus consists of a single species endemic in S.W. Australia._ It is closely allied to 

 Epacris, differing chiefly in the leafy nature of the bracts, which give it a pecuhar aspect, 

 and m the anthers partially adnate as in Prionotes. 



^ 1- C. rubra, R. Br. Prod. 553. An erect, glabrous, not much-branched 

 slirub of 8 to 6 ft., the branches completely covered with the sheathmg bases 

 of the leaves until they ultimately fall off, leaving no scars. Leaves broad 

 and concave at the base, tapering into a spreading pungent point, 4 to 4 m- 

 (mostly about i in.) long, rigid smooth and shining or ooscurely veined 

 iinderneath, the adnate lowest portion which falls off with the rest usua ly 

 scavious. Peduucles or flowering branchlets very closely covered with similar 

 leaves or bracts, the lower ones small, those about the base of the calyx 

 gradually enlarged, all with spreading tips, but these passing into the sepals 

 "liich are linear-lanceolate, straight, herbaceous or more or less c^lomed 

 acute or acuminate, f to 1 in. long. Corolla-tube scarcely e^eeeding the 

 ?%x; lobes 2 to 2i lines long.-DC. Prod. vii. 766 ; Sond. in H. Pre^s. 

 »• 330 ; Bot. Eeg. t". 1822 ; Fl. des Serres. t. 1175 ; Epacns rubra, Spreng. 

 oyst. 1. 629 ; Cosmelia angudmia, DC. Prod. vii. 766. 



