66 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW AUSTRALIAN PLANTS, WITH 



OCCASIONAL OTHER ANNOTATIONS; 



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



(Continued.) 

 Bassia Tatei. 



Rather dwarf, intricately branched, densely beset with appressed 

 hairlets ; leaves flat, from broadish- to linear-lanceolar, slightly 

 succulent, many opposite ; calyx very inequilateral, on the inner 

 side at the lower part much protruding, with a wide basal cavity, 

 the tube streaked or furrowed, terminated often almost unilaterally 

 by three or less very short spinules, the other side often blunt by 

 protraction upwards and barbellate ; stigmas usually two ; seed 

 placed diagonally. 



At Lake Torrens ; Professor Tate. 



Height to 2 feet. Leaves to more than half an inch long, but 

 frequently shorter. Fruiting calyx when well formed about l /l 

 inch long. The remarkable obliquity of the fruit-calyx seems not 

 due to abnormal growth, as the seed is generally well-formed ; 

 nevertheless further observations in this respect need to be 

 instituted, the material at present available for examination being 

 scanty. 



Systematically this species might be placed nearest to B. 

 diacantha, of which B. iiuiflora seems to be only a variety. 



Bassia salsuginosa could be regarded as a reduced form of 

 Babbagia, with which it fully shares the habit, so that the genus 

 Osteocarpum, denned in 1854, might be restored, into which 

 Babbagia then would merge. From Bassia as well as from 

 Kochia could be excluded K. braihyptera, K. stelligera and K. 

 ciliata as a generic group, differing from the former chiefly in 

 symmetric flowers, from the latter in the want of membranous 

 fruit-expansions, the name Sclerochlamys, established 1857, serv- 

 ing as an appellation for such a generic complex, though all three 

 with good rights could stand also in Bassia, when regarded 

 in its ampler acceptation. 



SCLERANTHUS MINUSCULUS. 



Annual, dwarf, almost glabrous ; leaves linear-semicylindric, 

 dilated toward the base, thence trigonous, sharp pointed; flowers 

 distinctly pedicellate, mostly scattered ; tube of the calyx turgid, 

 somewhat streaked ; its lobes soon fully twice as long, rigid, 

 narrow, very acute, without any conspicuous marginal membranule, 

 soon much spreading ; perigynous ring very narrow ; stamens two 

 or one, many times shorter than the calyx-lobes ; anthers orange- 

 coloured ; styles very short, capillulary ; stigmas extremely 

 minute ; seed pyriform, its testula yellowish-brown. 



On the Murray-River and its lower tributaries. Gathered by 

 the writer first in October, 1848. 



