16 



Our mountain Grasstrees belong to the genus Richea,. 

 and it is a pity, where the scientific name is so easy, it is 

 not more universally used. This is all the more desirable 

 in such a case as the present, for the name Grasstree 

 is also given to a very different group of plants, which are 

 also called Black boy, that belong at the junction of the 

 Lilies and Rushes. Blackboys have very numerous long 

 wiry leaves, arising from the top of the stem, and a long 

 erect central club upon which numerous small flowers are 

 borne. 



Richeas are very unheathlike in general appearance, 

 but the flowers are of the Epacris type. The leaves are 

 relatively broad, and in some cases very long; they always 

 arise from a broad base closely enveloping the stem, which 

 they mark by a circular ring. The flowers are numerous 

 and clustered in bunches towards the end of the stem, each 

 bunch arising in a leaf axil. The corolla is closed above, 

 or has microscopic lobes, and at maturity falls of entire, 

 looking somewhat like a grain of rice. From this, Richeas 

 are sometimes called Rice plants. The stamens do not 

 arise from the corolla, but are inserted into the thalamus, 

 so that when the corolla falls the anthers and stigma are- 

 exposed to the visit of insects. The flower does ziot other- 

 wise differ from the type described above. 



We have a shrub very common in our bush of a similar 

 appearance to a small -leaved Richea, but the petals are 

 persistent and are separate one from the other nearly to 

 the base, and the anthers generally cohere in a ring round 

 the style. It is a Sprengelia. 



These and a few other genera have capsular fruits and 

 many seeds in each chamber. But there is another and 

 larger section of the family with berry-like fruits, each 

 ovary of which contains only one seed. 



The commonest genus of this is that commonly known 

 as the Whiteboards, or Leucopogon. The flowers are very 

 small, generally numerous, in axillary or nearly terminal 

 bunches. The corolla is white and the inner surface of 

 the petal lobes are densely covered with white hairs. The 

 fruit is small, and the style is not so sunk in a depression; 

 the outer part is succulent, the inner is a stone with five 

 or fewer chambers, each containing one seed. 



Cheeseberry and Pinkberry belong to a genus, Cya- 

 thodes, with similarly-structured flowers and fruit, only 

 the former are placed singly in the axils, and the petals 

 bear few or no hairs, and the fleshy coat of the fruit is 

 better developed. In Cheeseberry also there are generally 

 ten ovarian cavities. 



