171 



The specimens of H. Fitzgihhoni from all the localities men- 

 tioned are remarkably uniform in their characteristics. 



Heliotropium filaginoides, Bentham, var. heteranthum. 



Root thin, seemingly annual ; leaves flat, from narrow- to- 

 elliptic-lanceolar, as well as the branches and calyces hispidulous ; 

 some of the corollas enlarged, with semi-lanceolar deltoid glabrous 

 venulous lobes ; nutlets four, rounded-blunt, scabrous. 



West of Lake Amadeus. (Incorrectly recorded as H. fascicu- 

 latum). Precisely the same plant near Charlotte- AVaters (C. Giles), 

 Yule and Fortescue Rivers (J. Forrest). 



The enlarged flowers, which measure across the summit fully 

 a quarter of an inch, seem to indicate a dimorphismus. The 

 genuine H. filaginoides, which was gathered by Winnecke near 

 the Mulligan River, diflers from oar plant in thicker root, 

 silky lanuginous vestiture, corolla much beset with hairlets, and 

 perhaps also in always uniform flowers. Should future researches^ 

 from ampler material require the separation of the plant here re- 

 corded, then the variety name could become specific. In some 

 species of Heliotroinum (for instance H. ventricosum) the base of 

 the fruitlets gets finally so much drawn upwards at the inner 

 side as to render the point of afiixion midway-lateral. 



Eragrostis trichophylla, Bentham. 



Bentham (in the "Flora Austral," YII., 643) identifies an 

 Eragrostis from Queensland with the Poa imbecilla of New 

 Zealand. It is, however, a rather rigid plant, and a genuine 

 Eragrostis, while the real P. imbecilla, of Forster (but not of R. 

 Brown, who merely re-employed the name for a grass, now re- 

 ferred to Eleusine Chinensis), comes nearer to Poa ccespitosa, 

 some forms of which are quite as low, thin, and weak a^ 

 P. imbecilla, but the empty bracts of the latter are smaller, and 

 the flower-supporting bracts less streaked. 



With Buchanan's excellent illustration (" Indigenous Grasses 

 of New Zealand," pi. liii.) accord well some specimens from 

 Colenso in our collection, except that the five venules of the 

 flower-supporting bracts are shown as more prominent, therefore 

 precisely Poa-like. 



Leschenaultia striata, F. v. M. 

 Calyx-tube extending to fully one inch. Corolla inside below 

 its lobes beset with straight-spreading irregularly seriated white 

 hairlets ; the two upper lobes linear, acute ; the three lower lobes 

 extending considerably beyond the upper, expanding broadly on 

 each side into a bluish venular-striolated imperfectly crisp-cilio- 

 lated and somewhat crenulated membrane, the three-lined axis of 

 the lobes shorter than the expansions. 



