92 ON A NEW CHINESE ACANTHACEA. 
and its flowers are extensively used in bouquets, and by women to 
adorn their hair; but numerous inquiries that I have made among 
a Punti population have failed to elicit any logical reason for its name, 
.chi-kép-fa (finger-nail flower), and it is interesting to find that, though 
not generally known to the Puntis, the custom of dyeing the finger- 
nails by an application of the pounded leaves of this shrub, exactly as 
has been done for thousands of years, and is done to this day in the 
West of Asia, is practised by the young girls among the Hakkas of 
Kwangtung.—* Cantoniensis" in ‘Notes and Queries on China and 
Japan,’ vol. i. p. 40. 
THE “PAPER BARK” TREES OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 
The “ Paper Bark ” trees of New South Wales belong to the Natural 
Order of the Myrtacez, or Myrtle family, and have a thick outer cover- 
ing or bark, composed of many layers of a minutely divisible paper- 
like substance, varying from a dark to a very light brown colour, and 
capable of being separated into very thin layers. The trees producing 
this peculiar kind of bark indigenous to New South Wales, are :— 
Melaleuca linarifolia. M. squarrosa, also found in Tas- 
M. pauciffora. mania. 
M. Leucadendron. Metrosideros glomulifera. 
M. styphelioides. Callistemon salignus. 
M. viridiflora. C. lanceolatus. 
M. genistifolia. C. viridi pne: found also in 
New Caledoni 
mcm Bennett, M.D. 
ON A NEW CHINESE ACANTHACEA. 
By H. F. Hance, Pu.D., ETC. 
yoo 
Ruellia venusta, n. sp.; erecta, caule 4-angulo scabrido, foliis ob- 
longo-lanceolatis integerrimis obtuse acuminatis basi longe attenuatis 
sed vix petiolatis (lamina nempe ad insertionem produeta) 3-5 poll. 
longis 1} poll. latis supra passim subtus priecipue in venis pilis arti- 
