[ 509 ] 



XXXII. Notice of a Plant which produces perfect Seeds without any apparent 

 Action of Pollen. By Mr. John Smith, A.L.S. 



Read June 18th, 1839. 



I HE subject of this notice is a native of Moreton Bay, on the east coast 

 of New Holland, and its introduction is due to the late Mr. Allan Cunning- 

 ham, who sent three plants to this garden in 1829*. Mr. Cunningham not 

 having seen the plant either in flower or fruit, could not determine to what 

 order it belonged ; but from its general habit, and from the presence of stipules, 

 he described it as a "scrubby Ilex-leaved plant, probably belonging to Urficece." 

 Cultivation has not altered its habit, for the plants continue to be irregularly 

 branched, rigid, evergreen shrubs, about three feet high, of a harsh aspect, with 

 alternate leaves, on a short petiole, which, as well as the young branches, is 

 covered with short hairs : the leaves are elliptical, marginate, and furnished 

 generally on each side with three acute lobes, each of which, as also the apex, 

 is terminated by a short spine (similar to those of some species of Ilex and 

 Berberis) ; and the stipules are small, subulate, and persistent. 



Shortly after their introduction the plants produced female flowers, an ex- 

 amination of which proved the genus to be Euphorbiaceous, and allied to 

 Sapium : but although I have watched them carefully from year to year, I 

 have been unsuccessful in detecting anything like male flowers or pollen- 

 bearing organs ; and I should naturally have passed them over as dioecious, 

 and considered the three introduced individuals as females, had not my 

 attention been particularly directed to them in consequence of each of them 

 producing fruit and perfect seeds, from which I succeeded in raising young- 

 plants. This, too, was not the result of one year, but of several successive 

 years' sowing: the plant now exhibited to the Society was raised last year, 



* Mr. Brown informs me that he collected specimens of this plant, but equally without fructifica- 

 tion, at Keppel Bay, on the same coast, in 1802. 



3x2 



