THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 49 



Widely distributed through the extra-tropic desert regions. 



The exact systematic position of this plant has been long mis- 

 understood. When in 1848 it first was collected by me, I could 

 not identify it with described species, notably B. hyalospermum, 

 and thus dedicated it to a University-friend, Dr. Carl Jessen, the 

 subsequent Professor in Greifswald, and this name passed into 

 the Linnaea of 1852, p. 519; but Sonder, on that occasion, 

 united the plant with H. hyalospermum, which opinion was also 

 adopted by Bentham in 1866 (" Fl. Austral." iii., 644). This is all 

 the more excusable, as both species are often growing commixedly, 

 and as small forms of H. hyalospermum deceptively resemble 

 H. J^esseni, though the latter does not seem to reach the extreme 

 of south-western Australia, and is not contained in any of 

 Drummond's collections ; whereas it seems to preponderate over 

 the genuine H. hyalospermum in the south-eastern regions of 

 Australia. The now separated species is usually smaller in all its 

 organs, the involucre of the young headlet is less turbinate and the 

 lower bracts are generally laxer and less elongated, the receptacle 

 is less rough, the corollas are more dilated upward?, the well- 

 matured achenes are rather less flattened and always without 

 transparent margin, so that the name hyalospermum would not so 

 well apply, and the pappus-bristlets are neither much dilated nor 

 conspicuously connate towards the base. The aspect is much 

 that of Myriocephalus gracilis, while B. hyalospermum approaches 

 in general appearance more to the small form of H. coiula. 



Specimens of H. 'jfesseni have been examined on this occasion 

 from the following localities, irrespective of others, the collectors 

 being also indicated : — Gawler-River, Dr. Behr ; Wirrabara, Gill ; 

 Lake Alexandrina, Murray-River, Burra-Burra, Wimmera, Mur- 

 rumbidgee, F. v. M. ; Richardson-River, Dr. Curdie ; Edwards- 

 River, Dr. Mein ; Lachlan-River, Brueckner ; Darling- River, 

 Wuerfel ; Cobar, Andrae ; Wagga-Wagga, Hammond ; Mount 

 Murchison, Bonney ; Caiwarra, Mrs. Cotter ; Barrier-Ranges, 



E. Wehl ; Lake Cobham, Baeuerlen ; Bulloo and Paroo, L. 

 Morton ; Ballandool-River, Locker ; apex of St. Vincent's Gulf, 

 Mrs. Matthiesen ; Port Augusta, Mrs. Richards ; Port Lincoln, 

 J. S. Brown; Upper Spencer's Gulf, Felstead ; Port Gregory, 

 Oldfield. 



Carefully compared have been now also, from the largely 

 accumulated material of later gains, numerous samples of 

 H. hyalospermum, thus from the undermentioned places : — 

 Gawler- and Murray-River, Murrumbidgee, F. v. M. ; Edwards- 

 River, Miss Kuentz ; Yorke's Peninsula, Miss Salmon ; Lake 

 Gilles, Burkitt ; Fowler's-Bay, Mrs. Richards : west end of Great 

 Bight, Carey ; Mount Rugged, Miss Brookes ; Stirling-Range, 



F. v. M. ; Swan-River, Drummond and Preiss ; Irvin-River, 

 Miss Guerin ; Port Gregory, Spalding ; Bowes- and Murchison- 



