THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 143 



very definite marking. The symptoms, although they vary con- 

 siderably, agree in several important points, and the fact that the 

 effects of the bite are more severely felt in some cases than in 

 others, may probably be accounted for by the condition of the 

 blood of the victim at the time the bite took place. 



All the cases recorded occurred during the hottest months of 

 the year ; yet the spider is to be found all the year round, 

 although less active during the winter months. From my know- 

 ledge of the habits of this spider, I may state that I think the 

 danger of being bitten is very slight. The darkest and most 

 inaccessible places are chosen for its home, from whence it does 

 not appear until dusk, and then, upon the slightest disturbance it 

 either drops to the ground and feigns death, or retreats to the 

 innermost recess of its abode. 



NOTES ON A RARE PANDANACEOUS PLANT; 



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

 Pandanus Hombronia. 



Hombronia edulis ; Gaudichaud, Voyage de la Botanite, bo- 

 tanique planche 22, fig. 17. 



Near Cape Caution, at the northern end of Holnicote-Bay ; Sir 

 William M'Gregor. 



According to a communication received by Mr. F. M. Bailey 

 during his Excellency's recent stay at Brisbane, this species 

 attains a height of about thirty feet; the stem-diameter may reach 

 10 inches ; aerial roots are developed. The material, available 

 for examination, consists of two leaves, showing a length of 

 about five feet and towards the middle a breadth of about six 

 inches ; the texture seems less rigid than usual in species of this 

 genus, but the leaves are old ; their spinular denticles are mostly 

 erect, at the keel distant and not occurring along its lower portion. 

 The fruits are numerous and according to a note from Mr. Bailey 

 globularly crowded together. I find them to accord fully with the 

 delineation, quoted above, and published quite forty years ago, 

 Walpers in his Annales i., 755, having referred to this atlas 

 already in 1849. The plant of the Bonite-Expedition was 

 obtained on the Mariannes, a group which with the Carolines 

 possesses many litoral plants common also to the shore-region of 

 northern New Guinea. By almost universal accord since many 

 years the genus Hombronia has been placed as a mere section 

 under Pandanus, and this is borne out also by Bentham and J. 

 Hooker's great authority. Baillon, in the 2rst fascicle of his 

 Dictionnaire de Botanique, mentions this genus of Gaudichaud 

 simply as belonging to Pandanus. Count Solms-Laubach, 1878, 

 in the Linnsea p. 48, quotes Hombronia edulis as perhaps belong- 

 ing to Pandanus dubius (Sprengel, Syst. Veg. iii., 897, anno 

 1826), but Rumphius represents in vol. iv., on plate lxxx., the 



