pectinated with distichous, or rarely sub-tetrastichous, alternate, filiform 

 pinnules. The apices of the pinnules are minutely biniucronulate. The 

 colour is dark lurid-green. The suhsfance is soft, flaccid when recent, and 

 the plant, in drying, adheres pretty firmly to paper. 



Authentic specimens of C. obscura, Sond., prove tliat that 

 species was founded on very small and dense-growing indi- 

 viduals of what Mueller many years subsequently called C. 

 Sonderi ; and, according to the strict rules of priority, I ought 

 to have retained Sonder's specific name " obscura" (used in the 

 sense of " dark-coloured''), in preference to the much more mo- 

 dern " So?ideri" of Mueller. Some hundreds of specimens col- 

 lected by me at King George's Sound, and on other parts of the 

 Australian coast, have enabled me to trace the connection be- 

 tween the two extreme forms which alone were known to Sonder 

 and Mueller ; and as the state described as " obscura' very in- 

 adequately answers to the ordinarj/ condition of the species, 

 while that called " Sonderi" comprises all well-grown individuals, 

 I feel at liberty, in uniting the two, to choose the latter name, 

 though the newest. The still newer, though nearly contem- 

 poraneous name, " splendida," of Greville, however appropriate, 

 must be considered a synonym. 



In our fig. 2 the pinnules are represented as more closely set 

 and less decidedly alternate than they very frequently occur ; 

 but diS"erent individuals difl'er greatly in the closeness or distance 

 of the pinnules. 



Eig.^l. Caulekpa Sonderi, — the natural size. 2. Upper half of a branch. 3. 

 Apex of one of the pinnules : — the two latter figures variously magnified. 



