S84 Transactions. — Botany. 



while I advance it as a distinct species, I do so with some hesitation, and 

 mainly from the fact of its disagreeing in several important characters with 

 those of the other described species of Doodia, not a few of which, I think, 

 will hereafter prove, when examined and compared together in a living 

 state (the only way of true comparison), to be but varieties. Sir W. J. 

 Hooker truly enough said (though he only knew of those six species first 

 mentioned above) — " All our species of the genus are singularly variable." 

 (/. c. III. 75.) See, also, my remarks on the genus Doodia, in my preceed- 

 ing Paper " On the Ferns of Scinde Island (Napier)." 



Aet. L. — Descriptions of new Plants. By T. Kirk, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, ith December, 1880.] 



Oleaeia angulata, n.s. 

 A MUCH-BRANCHED shrub, 8-12 feet high ; branches grooved, short ; leaves 

 lV'-2^" long, broadly elliptic, rounded at the apex, truncate at the base, 

 waved at the margins, clothed with appressed white tomentum below, veins 

 forming nearly a right-angle with the midrib ; flowers in axillary panicles, 

 peduncles equalling the leaves or longer, branches short, spreading, angled, 

 pubescent, heads shortly pedicelled, involucral scales linear -oblong, laxly 

 imbricated, ciliated ; florets 3-5, one or two with a broad ray, achenes 

 strigose, pappus in two series. 



Hab. — North Island, North Cape, Spirits Bay. In habit and foliage 

 this species approaches O.fosterii, while it is closely allied to O.albiflora by 

 the inflorescence. It appears to have been confused with 0. albijiora, and 

 has a still more restricted range than that species. 



Dracophyllum peostratum, n.s. 



A small prostrate species, stems 3"-12" long, with short branches ; leaves 

 ^"-^" long, ovate subulate, with a broad sheathing base, glabrous ; flowers 

 solitary, terminal, sepals ovate, obtuse, shorter than the corolla. 



Hab. — South Island ; mountains above Lake Harris, Otago, 4,000 feet, 

 T. Kirk ; Mount St. Bathans ; and Stewart's Island, D. Petrie. 



A variable plant in habit, although constant in its leaves and floral cha- 

 racters. The branches are never so densely crowded as in D. muscoides 

 Hook.f., although Mr. Petrie' s specimens approach that species in this par- 

 ticular. The Lake Harris specimens, owing to their exceptional habitat, 

 creeping amongst sphagnum, were very lax and glaucous, but in other re- 

 spects agree with those from Mount St. Bathans and Stewart Island. 



SCH^NUS MOOREI, n.S. 



Tufted, leaves shorter than the culms, filiform, slender, grooved, with 

 reddish brown sheaths. Culms 4"-6" high, slender, grooved ; panicle soli- 



