18 RECORDS OF OBSERVATIONS ON SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR’S 
The leaves are very much like those of V. Helene, unless larger and stronger 
venulated, but the size and structure of the flowers is very different. The deeply 
divided corolla brings this species near V. pardisearum, the leaves of which however 
are very different in form, the racemes longer, the bracteoles deciduous, the calyx-lobes 
ciliolated, the corolla-lobes narrower, the filaments much beset with hairlets, and the 
fruit may also be very different. With this richly flowering shrub from the highlands 
of New Guinea, there from the region of the lark, has now been connected the name 
of the Hon. Sir James MacBain, K.C.M.G., President since several years of the 
Legislative Council of Victoria, President also of the Centennial International 
Exhibition of Melbourne, who in these and many other leading positions here 
sustained worthily the dignity of our colony, and unceasingly promoted the spread 
of religiosity and of scientific knowledge as well as the development of industrial 
resources in this country. 
From the same region was received a plant of a floral disposition and structure 
quite or almost alike, but with comparatively thin leaves of larger size and less lustre. 
From experiences on other kinds of plants in the Australian Alps I should regard this 
as a mere variety, originated in sheltered valleys, though its aspect is so different. 
The fruit of this is from a very blunt base truncate- ovate, slightly urceolar and nearly 
one-third of an inch long. The seeds are very numerous, angular and often truncate ; 
their testa is unenlarged. The affinity of V. Helene to V. Macbainii is also obvious; 
but the scanty infloresence and particularly the agapetoid elongation of the corolla- 
tube, of the anther-tubules and of the style render the plant very distinct; were it 
otherwise, it would have been also reduced to V. Macbainii. 
Vaccimum amplifolium. 
Glabrous throughout ; branchlets robust, not angular; leaves large, particularly 
firm, on very short petioles, nearly ovate or verging into an orbicular form, entire, 
almost flat, shining on both sides, biglandular at the base, their main-venules rather 
distant, more prominent beneath than above; flowers comparatively small, few 
together in axillary very short almost fascicular racemes; peduncles stout, angular ; 
pedicels thin, about as long as the flowers, bearing near the base two very small 
deltoid bracteoles; calyx separable from the pedicel by distinct articulation, 
companular-semiovate, minutely denticulated; lobes of the corolla considerably 
shorter than the tube, deltoid; stamens enclosed, five exterior, their filaments 
glabrous, extremely short, broadish, flat; filaments of the five inner stamens 
obliterated ; anthers elongate-ellipsoid, devoid of any posterior appendages, provided 
with conspicuous terminal tubules ; stigma hardly broader than the upper end of the 
style ; ovulary five-celled, impressed at the centre of the summit ; placentaries placed 
in the lower part of the ovulary-cells ; ovules numerous. 
