St 
bo 
R. T. BAKER AND HENRY G. SMITH. 
VITIS OPACA, F.v.M., anD A CHEMICAL INVESTIGA- 
TION oF Irs ENLARGED ROOTSTOCK (TUBER). 
By RIcHARD T. BAKER, F.L.S., Curator, and HENRY G. 
SMITH, F.c.s., Assistant Curator, Technological 
Museum, Sydney. 
[With Plates II., III. ] 
{Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, August 1, 1906. } 
Ovk attention was first drawn to this subject by Mr. B. H. 
Sampson, Superior Public School, Tamworth, who in June, 
1905, sent to the Museum some very fine specimens of 
‘tubers’ from the roots of a Native Grape, and which were 
exhibited the same month at the Linnean Society of New 
South Wales. Specimens of the so-called ‘tuber’ were 
afterwards received, attached to a whole plant bearing 
inflorescence and fruits and from which the species was 
determined as Vitis opaca, F. v. M. 
Investigation also proved that of all the species of Vitis 
recorded by Bentham and Mueller in the *‘ Flora Austral- 
iensis,’? not One possesses so great a leaf variation as V. 
opaca, and the leaf variation is so great that it is doubtful 
whether its description would not almost cover that of V. 
angustissima, F. v. M., a West Australian species, which 
however has perhaps a distinct inflorescence from that of 
V.opaca. Bentham’s description of the leaves of V. opaca, 
F. v. M.,’ covers a fair amount of latitude of morphological 
variation, but the systematic material examined by us 
shows that this species has a greater leaf variation than 
that of the material he examined. Under these circum- 
stances we now submit the following amended description 
of the morphology of the leaf of V. opaca. 
1B. Fl, Vol. L, p. 450; 
