THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. li 



is richly ciliated, and the cilia are in active motion. The 

 investigation of the action of cilia in the mussel, and the 

 action of reagents upon them to increase their speed when they 

 are sluggish, to revive them when they are drooping, or even ta 

 start them again when they stop, may find application in the 

 domain of medicine. It has been generally believed hitherto, 

 that cilia, when clothing parts of the body, act always in the 

 same direction and in a mechanical way, but the mussel teaches- 

 us different, for there not only may the cilia be stirred into 

 action by appropriate stimuli, such as the prick of a pin, but 

 the direction mav be reversed and even stopped altogether for 

 a little." 



DESCRIPTION OF AN HITHERTO UNRECORDED 



GOODENIA, INDIGENOUS ALSO TO VICTORIA, 



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



GoODENIA PUSILLIFLORA. 



Annual, never tall, generally diffuse or ascending, rather 

 scantily beset with spreading hairlets ; stems slender, nearly 

 always branchless and only leafy at the base and inflorescence ; 

 radical leaves crowded, pinnatilobed or some merely short- 

 incised, the lobes mostly from semilanceolar to deltoid, entire 

 or occasionally indented, the upper often somewhat confluent ;. 

 floral leaves small, from rhomboid-cuneate to lanceolar, with 

 but few incisions or indentations or completely entire; stalklets 

 elongated, very thin, corymbously or somewhat racemosely 

 approximated, unprovided with bracteoles ; flowers quite small ; 

 lobes of the calyx comparatively broadish, about as long as the 

 tube or longer, the latter at last considerably extending beyond 

 the insertion of the lobes ; corolla minute, almost or quite 

 glabrous, downward dark-streaked, all its lobes expanding orfc 

 both sides into yellowish or soon whiteish or purplish 

 membranes ; style very short ; stigma-cover dorsally invested 

 with very minute hairlets; fruit globular-ovate, nearly unilocular,, 

 hardly exceeded by the calyx-lobes, few-seeded ; dissepiment 

 narrow crescent-shaped ; seeds rather large, collateral, quite 

 flat, when ripe blackish, surrounded by a pale broadish 

 membrane. Generally on sandy or somewhat saline ground. 



Yorke's Peninsula, O. Tepper; near Flinders-Range, F. v. M ;. 

 near the Broughton-River, Miss L. Wehl ; near Mount Parry. 

 Prof. Tate ; Richardson's Creek, Dr. Curdie ; Wimmera, D.. 

 Sullivan ; Lake Coorong, C. Walter ; Looma-Rapids, Miss 

 Campbell; Lake Albacutya, Ch. French; Murray-River, Mrs. 

 Holding ; Edwards-River, F. v. M. ; Murrumbidgee, Dr. 

 Lucas ; Darling-River, Brueckner ; Lachlan-River, F. v. M. ;; 

 Tarella, W. Baeuerlen. 



