THE VICTORIAlSr NATURALIST. 101 



EECORD OF A NEW PAPUAN RHODODENDRON. 

 By Bakon von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S. &c. 



During a recent ascent of ranges fully 6000 feet high in sonth- 

 eastern New Guinea it fell to the fortunate share of Mr. Carl 

 Hunstein, to discover a grand epiphyte, of which he brought a 

 solitary flower, but made a colored sketch of the latter also. Though 

 it is unusual, to define any plant botanically from a single flower, I 

 feel no scruples in this exceptional case, to place at once this superb 

 production of the Papuan Flora on descriptive record, especially as 

 the material, altho' scanty, does allow of referring the plant clearly to 

 the genus Rhododendron. Thus also I am enabled, to fulfill a long- 

 cherished wish, to connect with some splendid floral treasure the 

 name of the Marquis Goyzueta de Toverena, Consul General in 

 Australia for the Italian Kingdom, a nobleman who has given much 

 encouragement to my researches, while representing here for a 

 series of years worthily his great country. Preliminarily this new 

 plant may be thus described. 



RHODODENDRON TOVEi.'EN^ 



Corymbs containing about 12 flowers, each at an average 6 inches 

 long and wide ; calyx reduced to a terminal narrow oblique expan- 

 sion of the stalklet, the latter nearly glabrous ; corolla pure-white ; 

 its tube slender-cylindrical, about 3 inches long, but not half an inch 

 wide at the middle, slightly widened upwards ; lobes seven, horizon- 

 tal, oblong-ovate, somewhat waved, scantily reflexed at the margin 

 for short spaces, rounded-blunt or (according to the sketch) occasion- 

 ally sinuous at tlie summit or there produced into 2 or 3 lobules ; 

 stamens 14, somewhat exserted, about 4 inches long ; filaments in 

 their lower portion densely beset with short spreading hair, in the 

 upper portion nearly glabrous ; anthers linear-cylindi'ical, nearly or 

 fully half an inch long ; pistil hardly longer than the corolla-tube, 

 co\er of the stigma patellar ; stigma 7-Iobed ; style about 1^ inch 

 long, as well as the ovary fulvous-velvety except towards the 

 summit ; ovary 7-celled. 



Four species of Rhododendron are described from New Guinea in 

 Dr. Beccari's " Malesia," I, 200-202 ; they all came from Mount 

 Arfak ; so that the addition of a south-eastern species renders it 

 now probable, that these superb kinds of plants occur in numerous 

 specific forms throughout the higher regions of the Papuan Island. 

 This fifth congener differs already in its white and very large 

 flowers from the other four ; but Rh. Konori has also a 7-lobed 

 corolla (a characteristic otherwise only prevalent in Rh, Fortuni), 

 and the number of stamens is also about the same as in Rh. 

 Toverenaj, while the anthers are likewise remarkably elongated. 



