483 



stigma, protecting them from harm in a most effective manner. The effect of this 

 arrangement of very fleshy opercula and calyx-tube is to protect the floral organs. 

 The species are dwarf mallees, growing on plains, which are sometimes devastated by 

 fire. 



A figure of the operculum of E. pyriformis var. Kingsmilli has been already 

 given, see fig. Se, Plate 171. 



Colour of Operculum. 



Botanists seem rarely to have touched upon this character. In Bot. Mag. 



t. 6140, Hook, f., shows E. Lehmanni with rich scarlet opercula. I do not doubt that 



they are coloured like the cultivated specimen, but I have not had the good fortune 



to see so richly coloured a specimen in nature. 



" Their colour is generally white, varying sometimes to green, more rarely they are yellow, orange 

 or purple." (Naudin, Mem. ii, 13.) 



Here are a few notes on coloured opercula, which will doubtless be amplified 

 in due course. They can, of course, only be observed in fresh specimens : — 



Red, and especially prominent in contrast with 

 the green calyx-tube 



Bright rosy red in such specimens in which the 

 filaments are white 



Colour very marked yellow to orange and red 



Brown ... 



Pale coloured , 



E. erythroeorys. 



E. erythronema. E. tetraptera. 

 E. Perriniana. 

 E. maculata, E. eximia. 

 E. Sieberiana. 



(d) Outer and Inner Operculum. 



Historiccd.- 



1793. Smith. 



1814. Brown. 



1844. Hooker. 



1866. Bentham. 



1879-84. Mueller (including hinged operculum, and 



homology with other genera). 



1891. Naudin. 



1897. Deane. 



Smith, 1793. Smith, in his original description of E. corymbosa (1793) says 

 " Lid somewhat membranous." (The operculum is rather thin in this species, but is 

 not the delicate or outer operculum referred to under, e.g., E. eximia.) 



Brown, 1814. E. (Eudesmia) tetragona. " Operculum depressed hemispherical, 

 with a point, glandular, whitish, marked with four cruciform strise, slightly depressed 

 opposite the teeth of the calyx, as if composed of the four petals, deciduous." (Eobert 

 Brown in Flinders' Voyage.) See also p. 463, and footnote. 



