of four New-Holland Plants. . 301 



I am indebted to the Rev. Mr. Duvics, F. L. S. Vice-M after of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, for fpccimens of this ihrub, which was 

 raifed in the Botanic Garden of the Univerfity by Mr. Donn, from 

 feeds brought from Port Jackfon, and flowered in 1799. ^^ fhould 

 ftand next to the M.Jlyphdoides^ to which its leaves bear fome re- 

 femblance; but they are neither twifted nor pungent, neither have 

 they more than five, or at moft feven ribs; they are alio more in- 

 clined to be oppofite than in that fpecies. The flowers are white, 

 encircling the branches in longllh cluftcrs. Calyx-teeth blunt and 

 without nerves, as in moft of the other fpecies, and totally unlike 

 the ribbed acuminated teeth oi M.Jiypheloides. Stamina coUedled to- 

 gether into bundles, but imperfedlly, and never to any confiderable 

 diftance from their bafe, fo that it would fcarcely be taken for a Mela- 

 leuca till the filaments in decay are found to fall off (for the moft 

 part) in clufters. The ftigma is fimple, as in MetrofiJcros. 



The very imperfect connexion of the ftamina in this plant leads 

 us to remark how little the diftindlion between Melaleuca and Metro- 

 Jideros, and confequently even the characSter of the Linnean clafs 

 Polyadelphui, are founded in nature. Moft plants indeed, of that 

 clafs, like moft fpecies of Melaleuca, have the filaments fo ftridly 

 united, for a confiderable part of their length, into feveral (moftiy 

 three or hve) phalanges or bundles, and thofe bundles fall off^fo entire, 

 that the charafter derived from fuch a circumftance feems no lefs 

 natural than convenient for the fyftematic botanift. In the Mela- 

 leuca nodofa, on the contrary, the union of the ftamina is continued 

 but a little way from the bafe, and it is even more flight in the plant 

 now before us, many of the filaments being quite fimple, and uncon- 

 nedled with their neighbours. The cafe is the fame in the genus 

 Citrus, of which Li nnseus could not but be aware when he efta- 

 bliftied this clafs, and indeed he alludes to the variablenefs of the 

 charader in his Genera Flantarum in defcribing Citrus. Neither is 



this 



