223 



DESCRIPTION OF MiCRANTHEUM DEMISSUM AND OF NEW 

 SPECIES OF SOLANUM, PULTEN>EA, AND GREVILLEA. 



By J. M. Black. 



[Read August 3, 1909.] 



Plate XIV. 



Micrantheum demissum, F. v. M. PJ. xiv. 



The literary history of this plant is curious. It was first 

 described in Tlie Vicfonaii yaturaJist, vol. vii., p. 17 (1890), 

 by Baron von Mueller from specimens supplied by Professor 

 Tate and Mr. J. G. O. Tepper, the localities named being 

 Encounter Bay and Kangaroo Island. Judging by the de- 

 scription in The Victorian Xaturalist the specimens forwarded 

 to Melbourne were lacking in flowiers, and no notice is taken 

 of the fact that the fruits are 2-celled, not 3-celled, as in 

 the two other known species of Micrantheum, Mueller pro- 

 bably thinking that the specimens were abnormal in this re- 

 spect. In Professor Tate's "Flora of Extratropical South 

 Australia," published also in 1890, the only species of Mi- 

 crantheum described is M. hexandrum, Hook. f. (which is 

 apparently confined to the eastern States of Australia) ; but 

 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of S.A., vol. xiii., 

 p 242 (1890), it is stated that the name should be altered 

 to M. demissum. In 1907 several specimens were collected 

 by Mr. H. H. D. Griffith and myself at Square Waterhole 

 and Mount Compass, and in 1908 specimens of the small- 

 leaved hairy variety were obtained on Kangaroo Island by 

 Mr. Griffith. It was thus ascertained that the flowers are 

 tetramerous and the fruit always 2-celled, the plant differing 

 in these respects from other Micranthea and necessitating an 

 extension of the generic character. As the species has never 

 before been fully described, it seems advisable to do so here. 



A dwarf shrub of 30-50 cm., with pubescent branches; 

 leaflets arranged in 3's (rarely in 4's or 5's), subsessile, small 

 (3-7 mm. long), oval, flat, with thickened margins and mid- 

 rib prominent below: flowers minute, pink, 1-3, axillary, 

 the males on short pedicels, perianth segments suborbicular, 

 the 2 outer ones smaller ; stamens 4, inserted at the base 

 of the 4-lobed rudimentary ovary and opposite to the seg- 

 ments ; female flowers sessile, with 4 subequal lanceolate seg- 

 ments ; ovary 2-celled, with 2 broad, divergent stigmatic 



