318 
HELICHRYSUM PROSTRATUM. 
forms a natural arch of great beauty." It is 
rather singular that this tree, which has been 
in Britain for upwards of a century, should not 
be found more frequently in pleasure grounds 
as an ornamental object. Plants of this variety, 
2 feet high, are 2s. each (1846). 
L. a. prolifera. — A specimen bearing this 
name stands in the arboretum of the Horti- 
cultural Society at Chiswick — no doubt a 
mere continuation by grafting of some curious 
monstrosity. The tree which is growing in 
the Society's Garden is about 20 feet high. 
HELICHRYSUM PROSTRATUM. 
Dr. J. D. Hooker. 
THE PROSTRATE HELICHUrSUM. 
One of the plants of which a figure is given 
in Dr. Hooker's splendid work, the Flora 
Antarctica, is the Helichrysum prostratum, 
represented in the annexed figure, reduced 
from the plate given in that work. It is one 
of the neatest, if not the gayest, of the plants 
of the Antarctic flora. 
It is a graceful and very elegant plant, with 
decumbent branching stems, small elliptic- 
obovate, or obovate-spathulate, obtuse, scat- 
tered leaves, and flowers of a pure white, or 
faintly tinged with rose colour, and nearly an 
inch across. The flowers, it will be seen, 
grow terminally at the ends of the shoots, and 
being pretty freely produced, they have a gay 
appearance. The plantispeculiar among its con- 
geners for its prostrate or decumbent habit, 
which, however, renders it very suitable for 
planting on rock-work. The stems are leafy 
throughout, and irregularly furnished with 
divaricating branches, which turn upwards at 
tlie tips, where they produce their solitary 
flowers. The leaves, which are from a quarter 
of an inch to a third of an inch long, are 
covered beneath with a silvery tomentum, or 
downy substance, and on the upper surface 
with scattered silky hairs. 
It has been gathered both in Lord Auck- 
land's and in Campbell's Island, in the former 
confined to rocks at the top of the hills. In the 
more southern islands, it grows abundantly, 
trailing over the rocks and banks near the sea. 
Dr. Dieffenbach found it on Mount Egmont, 
in the northern part of New Zealand, where 
it was growing at an altitude of 4,000 feet 
above the sea. There cannot, therefore, be 
any doubt of its capacity to bear the cold of 
the climate of England : some experiments 
would however be necessary in order to ascer- 
tain if the moisture of our climate would 
destroy it. 
This is one of the plants which those who 
have communications with the countries it 
inhabits, should endeavour to introduce to 
this country. Being a composite plant, there 
is no doubt it pi'oduces plenty of seed, by 
means of which there would be little difficulty 
in raising it. Obviously, the situation where 
it would be most appropriately placed, under 
cultivation, would be where it would be ex- 
posed as far as possible to the pure free air. 
The plant seems to bloom pretty freely, but 
we have no means yet of determining what 
would be its flowering season in this country. 
From its habit, we may judge it to be a plant 
which would continue a considerable time in 
bloom. It 'should be planted in well drained 
and somewhat sandy soil, containing loam. 
