THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 23 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLORA OF VICTORIA. 



No. XVI. 



By F. M. Reader, F.R.H.S. 



(Communicated by J. F. Haase.) 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 9th April, 1906.) 



Centrolepis platychlamys, sp. nov. 



A minute, slender, glabrous moss-like plant, usually under i 

 inch high. Leaves subulate-filiform, dilated at the base into 

 imbricate broad membranous sheaths, the inner without 

 lamina ; in the larger plants shorter, in the smaller as long as, 

 or slightly longer than, the scape. Floral bracts close together, 

 erect or spreading, with the awn scarcely more than i line 

 long. Outer bract with a straight or recurved short point or awn, 

 broadly ovate, acuminate with the awn, at the margin narrowly 

 membranous ; inner bract about yi shorter than the outer, with 

 the margin broadly membranous, no awn and obtuse. Flowers 

 3-5, two with a stamen and no scales, the odiers devoid of either. 

 Carpels of the ovary usually from 5-9. 



This species is closely allied to C. mibscoides, jndvinata, and 

 pusilla. From the first it is distinguished by the smaller and 

 broader bracts and the absence of scales. In G. pulvinata the 

 bracts are a little distant from each other, and rather long hyaline 

 scales are present. G . pusilla has both bracts obtuse or scarcely 

 pointed and each flower with one or two hyaline scales. 



Swampy ground. Little Desert, Lowan ; F. M. Reader, 

 November, 1900. Also found by Mr. H. B. Williamson at 

 Hawkesdale in March, 1904. 



THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Advantage was taken of the celebration of the jubilee of the 

 opening of the Melbourne Public Library, during the week 21st 

 to 28th April, to formally open the recently completed addition 

 to the National Museum. Some account of the then proposed 

 additional halls was given in the Victorian Naturalist, vol. xvii., 

 p. 14, and a sketch of the arrangement of the Museum as then 

 existing in vol. xviii., p. 72. By the opening of these additional 

 halls on Saturday, 21st April, by Hi? Excellency Sir Reginald 

 Talbot, the public are now enabled to appreciate fully the 

 Director's (Prof W. Baldwin Spencer, F.R.S.) scheme for devoting 

 one of the new halls entirely to representatives of our Australian 

 fauna. 



The main entrance to the Museum, which in future will be from 

 Russell-street, opens into a large hall, measuring 113 feet x 52 

 feet, one end of which is temporarily partitioned off to provide 



