51 



DESCRIPTION. 



XLIX. E. microtheca, F.v.M. 



Described in Jourti. Linn. Soc, iii, 87 (1858), in Latin, which may be translated as 

 follows : — 



A tree with slender nearly terete branches. Leaves alternate, shortly petiolate, linear-lanceolate 

 subfaleate, somewhat acute, dark and without visible oil-glands, very thinly veined, the marginal vein 

 close to the edge. Umbels axillary, solitary or paniculate, few-flowered, the peduncles angular. Fruits 

 small, semi-ovate, not ribbed, shortly pedicellate, 3- to 4-cehVd, the valves inserte i below the margin and 

 hardly exserted. Fertile seeds hlackish, smooth, not winged. Hah. — Not rare in the fertile plains of 

 Tropical Australia. Tree of middle size with a dirty brownish-while bark full of wrinkles and cracks, 

 persistent on the trunk, deciduous on the upper branches, leaving them ashy-white. Leaves rather thin, 

 2-5" long, 4-8" broad. Panicle shorter than the leaves, the peduncles variable in length. Fruits, 1£ 

 to 2'" long ; seeds nearly §'" long, peltate- or truncate-ovate. 



It was afterwards described in English by Bentham in B.Fl. iii, 223 as 

 E. brachypoda, Turcz., though with some confusion with E. rudis, Endl., as will 

 be explained presently. Mueller subsequently figured and described the species in 

 the '' Eucalyptographia." 



Notes Supplementary to the Description. 



Mueller {Eucalyptographia) figures E. microtheca with a non-dilated stigma, 

 and draws attention to this as a character, but I have seen quite a number of flowers 

 of this species with a more or less dilated stigma, so that this supposed character 

 falls to the ground. 



SYNONYM. 



E. brevifolia, E.v.M., Journ. Linn. Soc, iii, 84 (185S). 



Mueller in " Eucalyptographia " agrees with Bentham {B.FL iii, 223) that 

 E. brevifolia is a synonym of E. microtheca. It is the older name and would have 

 replaced E. microtheca had not there been an earlier E. brevifolia. 



E. brachypoda, Turcz., not a Synonym. 



Bentham (B.Fl. iii, 223) unites E. microtheca with E. brachypoda ; but as already pointed out in 

 Fra/in., xi, 14, Drummond's plant iv, 73, belongs to the southern regions of Western Australia, only his 

 subsequent collection'', pirticularly the sixth, bringing plants from the neighbourhood of the Murchison 

 R,iv-r. His plant in the Melbourne collection is also not in fruit; but the flowering specimen, to which 

 Turczaninow's description is well applicable, agrees with E. rudis. — (Eucalyptographia, under E. microtheca.) 



I have examined Drummond's iv, 73, and agree with Mueller in referring it 

 to E. rudis, so that E. brachypoda, Turcz., is not a synonym of E. microtheca, F.v.M. 



A specimen of Mueller's " Eucalyptus micrtoheca, ferd Mueller, Victoria 

 River " (doubtless a co-type), named by Bentham E. brachypoda, Turcz., for the 

 Flora Australiensis, was presented to me by Kew, and is the species under con- 

 sideration, so that Bentham has placed two species under E. brachypoda. 



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