26 RECORDS OF OBSERVATIONS ON SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR 'S 
Decatoca Spencerit. 
On Mount Knutsford and on others of the highest elevations of the Owen 
Stanley’s Ranges. 
A shrubby plant, in some places dwarfed to a few inches height and sometimes 
procumbent. Branchlets beset with very short spreading hairlets. Leaves crowded, 
of rather thin texture, conspicuously stalked, somewhat spreading, from orbicular-to 
lanceolar-ovate, broadish towards the base, slightly curved inwards, mostly 
one-quarter to one-third of an inch long, at the margin flat and faintly ciliolar-rough, 
beneath pale green and there showing three to five longitudinal somewhat prominent 
and many thinner divergent venules, at the apex simply acute. Flowers terminal, 
sessile, usually but few crowded together. Bracts one to each flower, as well as the 
bracteoles rhomboid-orbicular, about twice shorter than the calyx, broadish and 
hardly acute. Sepals orbicular-ovate, streaked, subtle-ciliolated. Corolla nearly 
twice as long as the calyx, probably white, hardly one-quarter of an inch long; its 
tube much longer than the lobes, considerably narrowed only near the base, inside 
bearing closely crisped hairlets ; its lobes rounded, glabrous or imperfectly beset 
inside with hairlets. Anthers pendent, without appendicle or protraction. Style 
extremely short, stoutish, always glabrous. Stigma truncate. Disk blunt-lobed. 
Fruit globular, half exceeding the calyx, hardly measuring more than one-sixth of an 
inch, glabrous, but not seen in a perfectly matured state, the exocarp probably getting 
succucent ; fruit-cells, so far as can be judged from the available material, secedent. 
Unexpectedly this new Epacrid shows an approach to Trochocarpa thymifolia, 
which hardy plant particularly on account of its crimson flowers ought to become an 
inmate of gardens also of the cool zone. ‘The leaves of this solely Tasmanian plant 
are in form exactly like those of the new Papuan member of the order, but they are 
smaller, more divergent, somewhat recurved at the margin and of thicker texture, 
with venules hardly perceptible beneath, the spikes are longer and at first decurved, 
the colour of the flowers is different, the sepals are less streaked, the hairlets on the 
inner side of the corolla are mainly descending, and are aiding in conveying the 
pollen to the stigma, the corolla-lobes are acute, the filaments are well developed and 
bend downward during fecundation, so as to place the anthers then close to the 
stigma, further the fruit is much larger, outside very succulent and proportionately 
more depressed, irrespective of the generic difference derived from the valvular 
eestivation of the corolla-lobes. 
In its leaves this new epacrideous plant is singularly similar to Styphelia 
Macraei, so also in the disposition of the flowers and in the shape of the calyx as 
well as that of the bracteoles and fruit. Incidentally it should be noted in con- 
nection with the latter plant, that Cyathodes Macraena from the Hawaian Mountains 
