*" THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Finally very tall ; branchlets angular ; leaves comparatively 

 small, narrow-elliptic, but gradually narrowed into the very short 

 petiole, blunt, somewhat oblique, slightly or hardly paler beneath ; 

 staminal spikes ellipsoid-cylindric, solitary ; strobiles egg-shaped, 

 their racheoles extremely numerous, broader than long, narrowly 

 thickened at the summit. 



Mount Bartle-Frere, Christie Palmerston ; Mulgrave-River, 

 Stephen Johnson. 



Mr. Johnson calls this the largest and noblest jungle tree, 

 ascending from the river to high mountain-altitudes. So far as 

 can be judged from the material before me, this northern Kauri 

 Pine of Queensland is specifically distinct from the southern, 

 which occurs on the mainland near Wide Bay and on Eraser's 

 Island, but may also exist in North Queensland. The leaves are 

 never lanceolar, much smaller and particularly narrower, also 

 always obtuse, as compared to those of trees of the typical 

 D. robusta, cultivated here and now fully 40 feet high. Never- 

 theless the specimen branchlets may all have been taken from 

 very tall trees, and the leaves may thus become reduced in size 

 and perhaps altered in form. The seeding strobile seems also 

 considerably smaller and proportionately narrower ; but our 

 collections contain it not in a fully ripe state, but it is then only 

 I ^2 inches broad. The racheoles are remarkably small, because 

 they seem more numerons than in any other congener, as about a 

 dozen in each transverse series can be counted on a side-view of 

 the strobile near its middle; moreover they are almost fan-shaped. 

 The species, here now described, seems nearest to B. Moorei of 

 New Caledonia. In all cases it is preferable to use the earliest of 

 binary names for any plant, whatever other objections can be 

 raised, so long as it is correctly retainable within the genus first 

 adopted. If all ante-Linnean names are to be discarded, then 

 Agathis must precede Dammara in designating the Kauri-Pines. 



The same collector brought from the same region a variety 

 (pleiocarpa) of Ackama Muellerl, with often three and sometimes 

 four fruitlets, and with leaflets on short stalklets. Possibly it may 

 be a distinct species. It offers an approach to Spiraeanthemum. 



May, 1 89 1. 



Mr. C. French, Government Entomologist, will be glad to re- 

 ceive specimens of noxious insects from any part of the colony in 

 all stages of growth, with particulars of their occurrence. Speci- 

 mens to be forwarded to him at his office, Exhibition Buildings, 

 Melbourne. 



