99 
HELICHRYSUM NIVEUM. 
(SNOW-WHITE-FLOWERED HELICHRYSUM. ) 
CLASS. 
SYNGENESIA. 
ORDER. 
SUPERFLUA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
COMPOSITE. 
Generic Character. — Capitulum many-flowered, sometimes homogamous, with all the flowers tubular, 
hermaphrodite, five-toothed ; sometimes heterogamous, with the flowers of the ray in one row, frequently 
a very few slender females. Involucrum imbricated, scales scariose, interior ones connivent or 
radiant. Receptacle plane, not paleaceous, now naked or areolate, now delicately fringed. Achenium 
without a beak, sessile, with a terminal areole. Pappus in one row, with subscabrous bristles, (or 
feathers,) sometimes free, either equally united at the base, or unequally coadunate or branched. 
Specific Character.; — Plant perennial, herbaceous, or subshrubby. Stems strong, erect, nearly simple, 
about four feet high, scabrous. Leaves oblong-spatulate, pubescent on both sides, with the base of 
the petiole narrow and partially clasping the stem. Heads of flowers large, solitary, terminal. 
Involucral scales white on both sides, connivent, ovate, mucronulate. 
From the beautiful H. macranthum , a species, like the present, indigenous to 
the Swan River Colony, H. niveum , though not remarkably different, is easily dis- 
tinguished by the absence of any pink colour in the involucral scales, or exterior 
petal-like portions of the flowers, and by the general strength and vigour of its 
habitude. The latter circumstance, offering, as we conceived, a better mark of dis- 
tinction than the want of tint in the blossoms — many other species having these 
equally white — induced us to name it H. robustum , under which appellation it 
may be found in some of the London nurseries. But a figure of it having since 
been published in the Botanical Magazine, where Dr. Graham has called it 
II. niveum , on account of the supposed purity of the white in its flowers ; from a 
desire to avoid confusion, we relinquish our own designation, and adopt that now 
given. 
This species was primarily brought into notice, we believe, at the Clapton 
Nursery, seeds having been sent to Mr. Low by Mr. Drummond, who had collected 
them at the Swan River settlement. Other individuals procured some, however, 
almost at the same time ; and among those were Messrs. Young, of Epsom, from 
whose establishment our drawing was prepared in August 1840. 
