46 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST 



seizes on this apt opportunity of promulgating simultaneously 

 various notes, which were gradually made on material often imperfect 

 accumulating during a series of years in his establishment. The 

 connected investigations now instituted have led to altering some of 

 the generic limits of the plants here under review; and this small 

 essav may induce local observers beyond Australia, to follow up this 

 particular line of observations elsewhere. The notes, now to be 

 offered, have in an unconstrained fashion been variously appended 

 to the descriptions of the new species just elaborated. For an 

 exhaustive monographic treatise on the tribe of StercuUecB as yet 

 the time has not arrived, as doubtless numerous species and perhaps 

 some genera, pertaining to this group of plants, remain still to be 

 discovered within the tropics both of tlie eastern and westera 

 hemisphere, not to sj^eak of the scanty material, from which many 

 of the known specific forms could hitherto only be elucidated. 

 Ptbryoota Forbesii. 



Leaves almost ovate-cordate, at the base nearly truncate; fruitlets 

 obliquely ellipsoid-ovate, terminated by a narrow blunt ascending 

 apex, containing about 20 seeds. 



Near the base of the Owen Stanley's Ranges; H. O. Forbes (441.) 

 The above diagnosis comprises; all the characteristics, which from 

 a solitary specimen with immature fruit can be offered for separating 

 this Pteryqota from P. Roxhurghii and P. Thwaitesii; yet the 

 Papuan plant cannot be considered as identical with the former, and 

 is still more distinct from the latter; moreover the flowers and 

 ripe fruit, when obtained, are likely to exhibit additional specific 

 differences. The leaves, so far as the material hitherto extant 

 allows to judge, have not a distinctly cordate base, the fruitlets are 

 nearly twice as long as they are broad, therefore not almost globular 

 (as those described by Uoxburgh, Schott, Beddome, Masters and 

 Kurz from the original congener), and further they are produced 

 into a conspicuous apex, not indicated in any of the descriptions, 

 nor shoNvn in Beddome's illustration of P. Roxburglm. The only 

 fruitlet seen, which commenced to burst and therefore was approach- 

 ing ripeness, is 3^ inches long and 2 inches broad, irrespective of 

 the stipes, which measures about one inch in length; thus it is 

 evidently smaller than the ordinary fruitlets of P. lioxburglni, and 

 more approaching in size and form those of P. Thwaitesii, though 

 not blunt; the seeds are also much less numerous than in the 

 Continental-Indian species. As yet no record is extant of any 

 Pterygota occurring in the Suuda-Islands, a fact which renders the 

 occurrence of an isolated and vicarious species in New Guinea all 

 the more significant, and points also to permanent specific diversity. 

 In adopting for Roxburgh's plant the original specific name, given 

 in Vienne, the repetition of the leading characteristic both in the 

 generic and specific appellation is avoided. 



