170 



Supplemental Notes to the List of Plants, 

 Collected in Central Australia. 



(See Part I., pp. 94 et .seq.) 



By Baron Sir F. von Mueller, F.R.S. &c. 



[Read October 7, 1890.] 



Helipterum Fitzgibboni, F, V, M. 



West of Eringa and close to Lady Charlotte- Waters ; also 

 near the Finke River, Rev. H. Kempe ; on Tempe Downs, R. F. 

 Thornton ; near the Georgina River, Alfred Henry ; on ISTullar- 

 bor Plains, J. D. Batt ; near Mount Moore, Edwin Merrall ; at 

 the eastern sources of Swan River, Miss Alice Eaton. 



From the Botanic Museum of Melbourne some years ago, under 

 the above systematic name, this plant was distributed, which is 

 dwarf, annual (or at all events flowering from a first year's root), 

 and has broad, linear, bluntish leaves ; peduncular elongations of 

 branches are hardly developed. It difiers from //. incanum in 

 being beset with short glandule-bearing hairlets, in headlets 

 which never attain a large size, in more numerous and more 

 acuminated involucral bracts, the outer of which are dark- or 

 red-browai, ciliolated, and slightly silky, the inner upwards always 

 white, in none of the fruits being attenuated at the summit, and 

 in usually fewer pappus-bristles. Sometimes the involucrating 

 bracts are still more increased on expense of the development of 

 flowers. Horticulturally, this plant is quite distinct from any of 

 the forms of H. incanum : nevertheless, it is as yet uncertain, 

 whether it should be regarded as a permanently distinct species 

 or merely as an extreme variety. The broader-leaved form of 

 //. incaiitcm, with the usual lanuginous vestiture, penetrates also 

 quite as far as the Tropic of Capricorn into Central Australia, 

 though it is as yet not know^n from any region of West Australia. 

 In the higher of our Alps, and in many other tracts of country, 

 H. incanum produces quite a thick perennial root- stock of con- 

 siderable length. The whole plant exhales a pleasant, somewhat 

 chamomile-like, odour. 



The specific name of this extremely pretty " everlasting " was 

 chosen in honour of E. G. Fitzgibbon, Esq., who for a third of a 

 century has so etiiciently held the responsible and onerous office 

 of Town Clerk of Melbourne, and wdio with genial and en- 

 lightened circumspectness has also constantly promoted science- 

 research in the greatest of Southern Cities. 



