DESCRIPTIVE NOTES ON PAPUAN 
PLANTS, 
BY 
BARON FERD. VON MUELLER, C.M.G, M. & PILD., F.R.S. 
The main material for this second publication on New Guinean 
plants was placed disinterestedly at my disposal by the Reverend 
S. Macfarlane, who some months ago explored the Baxter- and 
Fly-River, with a view of carrying the blessings of Christianity 
gradually to the heathens in the recesses of the great Papuan 
Island. While these pages were under preparation I received 
also from Dr. Scheffer of Java the first portion of the yet 
unpublished ^^Annales du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg,” a 
periodical thoughtfully commenced this year, and such one as 
each great phytologic institution for the records of its reasearches 
ought to possess. Dr. Scheffer’s first essay in these promising 
annals dwells on Mr. Teysmann’s plants gathered on the north- 
west coast of New Guinea, from which part also some records — 
though hitherto much overlooked — are extant already in the 
volume published by Achille Richard, from 1832 to 1834, on the 
botanic collections secured during the discovery-voyages of 
Admiral Jules Dumont d’Urville, in the corvette Astrolabe, 
So far as cursorily the opportunity was afforded me in the 
B 
