48 FLORA OF TASMANIA. [Malvaceae. 
Stems 2 feet high, branched, covered, as well as the leaves more or less on both surfaces, with soft stellate hairs 
and pubescence. Leaves petiolate, orbicular, five- to seven-lobed, margins irregularly toothed or cremate, l$-4 
inches broad. Flowers pedicelled, solitary or fascicled, white or pink, H-2 inches in diameter. Involucre three- 
lob .'. orate, acute, and as well as the five-lobed calyx enlarging after flowering, and hence varying much in 
- se and form. Petals broadly obcuneate, deeply notched, with sharp lobes. Carpels six to eight, with a 
flat dorsum and sharp angled sides, wrinkled. — My specimens seem identical with the figure in the ' Botanical 
' but are more tomentose than the description; this however is a very variable character, and cultivated 
plants are often more glabrous than the wild state. I had, in the ' Journal of Botany,' made var. /3 tomentosa of the 
Taamaman specimens; but at that time I did not entertain the opinion I now do as to the impropriety of treating 
the cultivated plant as the typical form, and describing the wild state from which it deviated as a variety of it. 
According to Sims, Mr. Brown considered his south coast specimens to be specifically distinct from the one then 
Jttltivated, the seeds of which were brought from the westward of the Blue Mountains, but I am unable to distin- 
guish Gunn's plant from Sims' figure. 
Gen. II. LAWEENCIA, Hook. 
Involucellum 0. Calyx subinflatus, 5-fidus. Corolla 5-loba, cum tubo stamineo cohserens, calyce 
aequilonga. Anthem 8-12. Carpella 5, 1-2-ovulata; stylis totidem, filiformibus. &uefas 8-5-coecos ; 
coccis 1-2-spermis. — Herbse robmta v. suffrutices; floribus axillaribus spicatisve, viridibus, bracteatis. 
A very remarkable genus, unlike its allies in habit and texture, and confined to Southern and Western Australia 
and Tasmania. Three or four species are known, belonging to two sections; one section including the Swan River 
L. (jlo-nwrata, Hook., mid Ta-uianiaii L.^rata, Hook., has glabrous herbaceous stems, densely spiked or axillary 
solitary flowers, and one-ovuled carpels; the other (Halothamnos, F. Muller, consisting of natives of South- 
eastern and South-western Australia) has shrubby stems, scaly foliage, axillary crowded flowers, and one or two 
ovules. Asa Gray (Bot, U. S. Expl. Exp. 180 in note) proposes to alter this name (by an anagram) to Wrencialia, 
because of its being too near Lawrencia, a genus of Algae. (Lawrencia was named in honour of William Lawrence, 
Esq., of Tasmania, one of the earliest and most successful explorers of the Colonial Flora.) 
1. Lawrencia spicata (Hook. Ic. PI. t. 261, 262) ; glaberrima, herbacea, caulibus simplicibus erectis, 
foliis ovali-spathulatis insequaliter serratis inferioribus longe petiolatis, floribus sessilibus in spicam longam 
densam. bracteatam arctissime congestis. — Lond. Journ. Bot. ii. 413; Nees v. Esenbeck in Plant. Preiss. 
xi. 235. (Gunn, 746.) 
Hab. Flinders' Island, Bass' Straits, Gunn. Kelvedon, Great Swan Port, Backhouse.— {Fl. Dec.) 
Distrib. Southern and Western Australia, from Port Fairy to Swan River j Sydney ? 
A stout fleshy herb, with simple stems, 1-2 feet high, as thick as the thumb and woody at the base. — Radical 
li area 1 inch long, on petioles 1-3 inches long, elliptical, coarsely irregularly serrate; upper narrower, more sessile. 
Stipules minute, subulate. Flowers green, the lower sessile in the axils of bracteal leaves, the upper crowded into 
an elongated green cyhndrical spike 4-10 inches long, hidden by the lanceolate bracteal leaves, and subtended by 
a trifkl bract. Calyx shorter than the bract, inflated, five-lobed above the middle. Petals inserted below the 
middle of the staminal tube, lanceolate, with obliquely bifid or truncate apices, shorter than the calyx. Anthers 
large, on short filaments at the apex of the tube. Ovaries one-ovuled, with long free styles, dilated into linear flat 
stigmata, papillose on the inner surface. Carpels rather membranous. Testa minutely cancellate. Albumen scanty, 
fleshy. Embryo bent at an angle; radicle terete; cotyledons convolute. — Mr. Gunn informs me that the Port 
Arthur station formerly assigned to this plant by him (Lond. Journ. Bot.) is doubtful. 
Gen. III. PLAGIANTHTJS, Forst. 
Mores polygamo-dioici. Calyx campanulatus, 5-lobus, valvatus. Petala 5, basi in tubum coalita. 
