1172 NOTES ON PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO SYDNEY, 



common from tlie coast to the mountains, being found even at a 

 height of six thousand feet ; while W. saxicola is stated by 

 Hooker to be fonnd on the coast and also on the summit of 

 Mount Wellington, in Tasmania. Wahlenhergia gracilis is an 

 exceedingly variable plant, both in its general stature and in 

 the size of its individual dowers. Mature specimens may be 

 collected side by side, varying from six to eighteen inches 

 in height, and with corollas from two or three lines to three 

 quarters of an inch in diameter. It seems to prefer light open 

 forest land, and in such localities it has been exceedingly abundant 

 during the present spring and summer. In all its forms it is an 

 exceedingly graceful plant ; its beautiful blue flowers, when seen 

 at a little distance, bringing at once to memory the English 

 Harebell {Camioanula rotundifolia), though of course a very 

 different plant when more closely inspected. Wahlenhergia 

 gracilis presents a peculiarity, when quite mature, in the apparent 

 loss of its stamens. It is but apparent, however, their peculiar 

 form, together with the early loss of the anthers, lead often to the 

 supposition that the flower has no stamens ; but I have not found 

 them altogether absent in any specimen that I have examined. 

 In nearly all, however, after the flowers have reached maturity 

 the anthers have been wanting. The ovary has its dome shaped 

 top level with the bases of the calyx lobes, and the fine stamens 

 have the lower portions of their filaments so broad, that during 

 the early existence of the flower, when they lie flatly upon the 

 ovary, they cover it so closely that they are scarcely distinguishable 

 from it ; and as the edges of these broad portions of the filaments 

 are ciliate, the top of the ovary, at that time, presents the 

 appearance of a flattened dome having five ridges extending 

 downwards from its apex. As the flower reaches maturity the 

 filaments become loose, standing more away from the ovary ; but 

 looking more like an inner perianth than stamens. Although so 

 broad at the base they end abruptly in a very fine thread-like 

 portion, as long as the broader part, having, through the loss of 

 the anthers the appearance of staminodia, hence the flower 

 appears either to have no stamens or imperfect ones. 



