48 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



'whereas Boissier in his "Flora Orientalis " iv., 925-927 (1879) 

 acknowledges Bassia as a section of Kochia in the place of 

 Echinopsilon for six species. The priority of the salsolaceous 

 over the sapotaceous genus is therefore also elsewhere vindicated ; 

 but in both instances, just quoted, Chenolea is still kept generically 

 apart. The publication of the seventh decade of " Australian 

 Salsolaceae" just now will afford an opportunity, to see with ease, 

 how completely that genus merges into Bassia. To avoid the 

 repetition of the name Bassia latifolia in two orders of plants, it 

 might be desirable, to adopt the species-name for the salsolaceous 

 plant from the genus Londesia (B. Londesia), that untenable 

 genus merely resting on this one species. 



Passingly it may here be noted, that the Chenopodium Buchanani, 

 described and illustrated in the "Transactions of the New Zealand 

 Institute," xxii, 447., pi. 32 (1890), ought to be transferred to 

 Atriplex, it being allied to A. prostratum. As just allusion is 

 made to a plant of New Zealand, some notes on the fruit of 

 Hectorella may simultaneously be offered, as that genus pertains 

 also to the CurvembiyonatcE, the material being kindly supplied 

 by Donald Petrie, Esq., M.A., F.L.S., of Dunedin. 



Ripe fruit almost globular or somewhat turbinate, membranous, 

 nearly as long as the sepals, slightly surpassed by the petals, for 

 some time retaining the style and the usually bilobed stigma, 

 bursting irregularly from the summit, measuring about \ inch. 

 Seeds ripening 2-4, ovate-roundish, slightly compressed, smooth, 

 outside shining-black, about -^ inch long. Albument scanty. 

 Embryo imperfectly annular ; cotyledons hardly longer than the 

 radicle. The affinity of the genus to Lyallia, as indicated by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, is now confirmed also from carpologic character- 

 istics ; indeed the alliance is so close, that Hectorella might be 

 regarded as a section of that genus. The fruit accords also with 

 that of Pycnophyllum. 



Helipterum Jesseni. 



Annual, dwarf, extensively or scantily beset with short hairlets ; 

 leaves numerous, filiform-linear, rather blunt, the upper gradually 

 reduced to bracts ; headlets constantly quite small, singly ter- 

 minating stems or branchlets, almost hemispheric ; outer involucral 

 bracts comparatively broad, blunt, shining, pale and some 

 partially brown-tinged, many soon relaxed ; inner bracts expand- 

 ing into a short constantly yellow lamina; flowers all bisexual, 

 some of the more central only imperfectly fruit-forming ; corollas 

 spreadingly short-lobed ; fertile fruits very small, but rather 

 broadish, papillular-rough, compressed, occasionally with one 

 prominent angle; pappus-bristlets generally 8-12, in their whole 

 length plumous-ciliolar, at the base slightly connected, quite white 

 or at and near the upper end yellowish. 



