AND GENERA OF PLANTS. 451 



tabescent, compressed and linear. Pappus a short, persistent, or somewhat 

 deciduous crown of two or three to five unequal, or nearly equal, short, acute 

 palese, longer and fewer in the infertile fruit. — Suffruticose or herbaceous 

 plants, chiefly of the Sandwich Islands and Australasia, with opposite, ovate, 

 dentate or incisely lobed leaves ; flowers terminal, or subumbellate, peduncu- 

 late, yellow. In habit allied to Wedelia and Wollastonia. With a different 

 involucrum, achenium, receptacle and pappus from Lipochceta umhellata, 

 with which I have compared our plants. 



MicrochcEtafohata; (3. hastulata. Lipochceta hastulata, Decand., Vol. V., p. 

 ^1. Verhesina hastulata, Hook, and Arnott, Bot. Beechy, p. 87. 



Hab. In the island of Ouau and Atooi. A low suffruticose plant, with the leaves more or less 

 lobed, sometimes nearly entire. Pappus of the tabescent florets (in an early stage,) with two awns, 

 much shorter than the fruit, connected with a membranous, lacerate, minute cup. Involucrum sub- 

 «ampanulate, in almost a single series of broad ovate, leafy sepals. Rays about ten. Capituli 

 sometimes solitary. Leaves ovate, or ovate-lanceolate, somewhat acuminate, the base often in- 

 cisely one or two-lobed on either side; the short petioles connate at base. 



Microchceta ^lanceolata; herbaceous ; stem angular, decumbent, dichotomous ; 

 leaves shortly petiolate, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, scabrous and strigose, 

 entire and very acute, distantly serrate, the serratures shallow, appressed and 

 mucronate; uppermost leaves alternate; peduncles solitary, dichotomal or ter- 

 minal, in twos and threes; involucrum rather flat and hemispherical; rays 

 short and numerous. 



Hab. In Ouau, near the sea.. Branches long and trailing, prostrate and ascending: the leaves 

 three-nerved, attenuated into a short petiole. Pedicels elongated, naked; sepals ovate, strigosely 

 hirsute, ten, in about two equal series. Rays as short as the involucrum, about twenty. Paleae 

 of the receptacle ovate above, hirsute, often three-toothed. Fertile achenium oval, turgid, trique- 

 trious and scabrous, with salient angles. Pappus a small persistent crown of three to five minute 

 paleae united in the centre of the contracted summit into a sort of cup: in the tabescent achenia 

 (which are very numerous,) the fruit is narrow-linear, with the paleae arising, as it were, from the 

 angles. 



Microchceta? lavarum. Lipochceta lavarum, Decand., Vol, V., p. 6U. 



Microchata succuknta. Lipochceta succuknta, Decand., ibid. 



Microchceta ^ integrifolia; herbaceous and prostrate; canescently strigose 

 with appressed hairs; leaves approximate, spathulatoroblong, small and entire. 



