THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 55 



DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW AUSTRALIAN PLANTS, WITH 

 OCCASIONAL ANNOTATIONS ; 



By Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M. & Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 



(Continued.) 



Acacia Rossei. 



Glabrous, but somewhat glutinous ; phyllodes crowded yet 

 -scattered, rather short, linear, curvedly short-pointed, slightly 

 verrucular-rough, almost doubly thickened along the median line ; 

 stipules comparatively long, capillulary- or linear-setaceous ', head- 

 lets of flowers on corymbously crowded stalks of evidently greater 

 length, placed between stipules and diminutive leaves; bragis 

 broadish below, thence gradually much pointed, sessile or 

 rstipitate ; segments of the calyx five, linear-spoonshaped, about 

 half as long as the corolla, separated to their base ; fruits com- 

 pressed, elongate-elliptic, their valves hard, outside densely beset 

 with dark-brown membranous crisped excrescences ; seeds placed 

 transversely. 



In the interior of South- Western Australia ; communicated by 

 Mr. W. Webb. 



Branchlets mostly elongated, somewhat verrucular-rough, long 

 ■retaining the stipules, the latter reminding of some such plants as 

 Pultenseas. Seeds not obtained, but from the shallow cavities on 

 the inner side of the valves their position could not have been 

 longitudinal. When the tricentennial jubilee of the Dublin- 

 TJniversity took place some months ago, the honour was shown 

 to the writer of sending to him an invitation for sharing in that 

 significant festival ; thus a wish then arose, now fulfilled, to 

 connect in commemoration of that scientific event the name of the 

 illustrious Chancellor of that venerable seat of learning, the Earl of 

 Rosse, K.P., with some rare member of the Australian floral world 

 for a perpetual living record also here of the astronomic renown, 

 which his Lordship inherited and so brilliantly sustains, and also 

 to pay some homage to the great services in the cause of the 

 principal Irish University by both these great astronomers. No 

 other of fully 300 species of Australian Acacias has the almost 

 lamellar-cuticular desquamation of the outer side of the fruit- 

 valves ; otherwise our new one stands systematically nearest to 

 A. Bynoeana and A. conferta ; but the former has more spreading 

 and less quadrangular phyllodes, almost sessile headlets, short- 

 lobed calyces and curved narrow fruits, while the last mentioned 

 species shows shorter flatter as well as proportionately broader 

 phyllodes ; moreover yonder both belong to other geographic 

 regions, and neither of the two has conspicuous stipules, in which 

 respect A. Rossei approaches A. cedroides. 



