116 



DESCRIPTION. 



XVII. E. capitellata Smith. 



In " A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland," p. 42, 1793 (1794). 



The original description will be found at Part VIII, p. 211 of the present work. It 

 was at this place more fully described by me, but my definition of the species, while 

 largely following Bentham, Mueller and other competent authorities, was too wide. 

 My references at Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., lii, 493 (1918), were also too inclusive, as they 

 include the dwarf form that I separated under the name E. Camfieldi. (See Proc. 

 Roy. Soc. N.S.W., liv, 66, 1920); see also below, p. 149. 



The type from Port Jackson may be described as follows : — 



A small to medium-sized tree with a stringy bark and timber brown or pale brown in colour., the 

 young branchlets sometimes almost quadrangular. 



Juvenile leaves with undulate margins and a few stellate hairs when quite young, but developing 

 later into a glabrous leaf of thicker texture of much larger size, ovate to orbicular (say 8 by 8 cm. and 8 by 

 10 cm., and even greater dimensions), shortly pedunculate or almost sessile, secondary veins few, spreading 

 or looped, the intramarginal vein far removed from the edge. 



Mature leaves " ovate lanceolate, firm, astringent but not very aromatic." (Original description.) 

 Equally green on both sides; coriaceous, venation spreading. 



Buds. — The buds and peduncles somewhat thick and angular or flattened. " We have seen no 

 other species in which the flowers stand in little dense heads, each flower not being pedicellated so as to 

 form an umbel." (Original description.) This, of course, does not remain true now. 



Fruits. — In consequence of the fruits being sessile, or nearly so, and crowded into heads, these 

 assume a polygonal shape at the base, as if they had been pressed together when in a plastic condition. 

 With this exception, the fruits have the form of a very much compressed spheroid, the horizontal 

 diameter of which is from one and a half times to twice the depth. The fruit is swollen out below the 

 rim, which is sometimes very well defined, and of a red or brown colour. The fruit is sometimes 

 truncate, but more frequently the rim is dome-shaped. There is great variability in the amount of 

 exsertion of the valves. The fruit may be perfectly ripe without exserted valves, but a twig from the 

 same tree may have them ".xserted. 



The type came from Port Jackson (Sydney), N.S.W. 



A figure of the species will be found at Plate 106, Part XXVIII, of my " Forest 

 Flora of New South Wales " ; figure b of that Plate belongs to E. Camfieldi Maiden. In 

 the present work it is figured at Part VIII, Plate 37, figures 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, so that the 

 figures of the juvenile and intermediate leaf (4a, 46) in Plate 186 seem quite adequate. 

 The juvenile leaves of the two species can be compare !. 



