November, 1881. 
THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST. 
53 
to take my shooting-iron with me and keep a sharp look out 
for the cannibals, for you know they were at one time 
here, if not now. No doubt Victoria, as well as her sister 
colony New South Wales, has come greatly to the front 
during the past two years ; this success, in a great measure, 
is due to the good effects of your two great Interna- 
tional Exhibitions, which have brought you in closer 
contact with the commercial world. Gentlemen, you 
have a light in your midst that will take many, many 
years to obliterate. The one I refer to is my friend 
on my right, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. Gentle- 
men, he has built monuments more enduring than marble or 
brass, and they will stand for centuries after he has passed 
away. The people of Victoria will live to do honour to his 
memory, when too late to acknowledge his sterling worth. 
Gentlemen you should feel justly proud to have such a valuable 
adjunct to the profession among you, and I may tell you that 
we in the United States of America are cognisant of his 
talents, and have done him the honour to elect him member of 
some of our leading scientific institutions. Do not for one 
moment imagine that we are better pharmacists in the United 
States than in any other part of the world, for, gentlemen, we 
do not claim that honour. If any one comes over here think- 
ing he can teach you much, he will find himself foiled, for I 
think, gentlemen, to use an Americanism, “ You have cut your eye 
teeth,” and as far as my observations serve me, the chemists of 
these colonies will compare favourably with any part of the 
world. I must confess that when leaving San Francisco for this 
country that tears involuntarily came to my eyes in spite of all 
I could do to prevent them, for I did not fully know what kind 
of people I was to cast my lot amongst ; but I have not found 
you a bad sort after all. I have made many warm friends in 
these colonies, friends whose friendship I shall cherish to my 
dying day ; and when I leave these shores I shall always look 
back with feelings of pleasure and pride, and will no doubt 
many times long to return to them. Referring to the remarks 
of your worthy president in regard to an international 
pharmacopoeia, I fully concur in all that has been said this 
evening. I must say I look forward to its consummation 
at an early date, and I for one will be glad when there will be 
no P.B. or U.S.P. , &c., or any other of the various 
pharmacopoeias now in existence. Gentlemen, there is also 
another true saying — “Nature abhors a vacuum,” and as I 
have done my level best for the past three hours to fill that 
vacuum, will close. Gentlemen, on behalf of the various 
kindred societies of the United States of America I thank you. 
Mr. B. C. Harriman responded on behalf of the Victorian 
visitors, and expressed the pleasure he experienced at all 
times in rendering his assistance to societies whose object was 
the advancement of science. 
The toast of “ The Press” was proposed by Mr. H. Brind, 
and responded to by Dr. Neild. 
The following donations to the Benevolent Fund have been 
received: — Dr. Robertson, £1 Is.; Dr. Neild, £1 Is.; R. J. 
Fullwood, £1 Is.; C. Marston, £1 Is.; T. H. Walton, £1 Is.; 
H. J. Long, £1 Is.; John Jackson, 10s. 
PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY’S MEDAL IN GOLD. 
School of Pharmacy prizes presented by the Council — 
Chemistry (‘‘elementary and practical”), botany, materia 
medica , and pharmacy. 
At the end of each term a gold medal will be offered for 
competition. Students who have attended more than one 
term will be ineligible to compete. The medals can only be 
taken by students who have worked in the laboratory for not 
less than 75 per cent, of their period of study, and who are 
connected with the Society as registered apprentices of the 
same. On receiving the report of the examiners, the Council 
will award the prizes. 
DEFINITION OF A NEW TREE FROM EAST 
AUSTRALIA. 
By Baron Feed, von Mueller, Ph.D., M.D., F.R.S., 
K.C.M.G. 
Dysoxylon Sehiffne rV — (Section — Cleisocolyx'). 
Leaves and their stalks almost glabrous ; leaflets verging 
from an oval to a somewhat lanceolar form, opposite or nearly 
so, thin-chartaceous in texture; racemous bunches of flowers 
arising from the stem, short ; stalklets nearly or fully as long 
as the flowers, silky ; calyx large, before expansion of the 
carolla almost egg-shaped, then perfectly entire and closed, 
without any ruptures or sutural lines, subsequently torn to 
about the middle into two undivided or once more slightly 
cleft lobes ; petals four, free, elongated-oblong, about one-third 
longer than the calyx, and likewise outside silky ; staminal 
column broadly tubular, seven or oftener eight-toothed, the 
teeth semilanceolar, about three times shorter than the tube ; 
anthers seven or oftener eight, sessile between the teeth at the 
summit of the tube, their connective often minutely pointed ; 
disk cup-shaped, free, slightly crenulated, as well as the 
staminal tube glabrous ; style filiform, its lower portion and 
the ovary densely downy ; stigma depressed-hemispherical ; 
ovary four-celled, with two super-posed ovules in each cell ; 
fruit globular, glabrescent, brown outside ; pericarp rather 
thin, not unless very tardily valvular ; seeds without any 
arillus. 
In the Mount Bellenden-Ker Ranges ; Karsten. 
A tree attaining a height of 80 feet. Bark greyish-brown, 
smooth. Wood yellowish. Leaflets on very short stalklets, 
in few pairs, so far as the very scanty material admits of 
judging, 2 — 5 inches long, somewhat inequilateral, very 
minutely dotted. Racemes two or more together, 2 — 4 inches 
long, fragrant. Petals nearly half an inch long, pure*white, 
upwards slightly imbricated, downwards valvular. Fruit not 
seen quite ripe, then not fully an inch long, nor showing any 
indication of valvular structure, four-celled. Seeds ripening 
solitary in each cell, turgid, almost longitudinally adnate ; 
testa thin, dark-brown, loose. Albumen none. Cotyledons 
planconvex collateral. Radicle very short, terminal, almost 
concealed between the minute lobes of the cotyledons. 
I have left this remarkable meliaceous tree in the genus 
Dysoxylon, as constituted at present, although the structure 
of the calyx is so exceptional in the genus, that under the 
sectional name here adopted, or perhaps under that of 
Epicharis, this species with its nearest allies might be 
raised to generic distinction, especially as the fruit does not 
seem to slit into any valvular divisions, in which anomaly 
however D. Klanderi coincides ( Vide Fragm. Phytogr. Austr. 
IX. 134), thus showing an approach to Sandoricum. The 
genus Dysoxylon, by admitting into it Hartigshea with 
arillate seeds, and Didymocheton with sepals overlapping at 
their margins, has become too artificial, while in Hartig- 
shea spectabilis the anthers are inserted below the merely 
crenulated summit of the staminal tube, a characteristic on 
which otherwise much stress has been laid by Casimir de 
Candolle. The remarkable location of the inflorescence is not 
without example in the genus, it bursting also in several other 
species away from the leaves out of the stem or main branches. 
This new species is nearest allied to D. caulostachyum from 
New Guinea, with which and the other species placed by 
Miquel in the section Epicharis it accords in the peculiar 
structure of the calyx ; but the leaflets are not coriaceous, 
the pedicles longer, the calyces twice as long, thus reaching 
much highqr up to the corolla, and the teeth of the column are 
neither rounded nor retuse-truncate ; the fruits are likely 
also different. 
This noble and singular tree is dedicated to Dr. Rudolph 
Schiffner, of Vienna, who for many years has been the presi- 
dent of the great and highly scientific Pharmaceutical Society 
of Austria. 
Itosomilittes, 
At the suggestion of Mr. Geo. Lewis, united action will be 
taken to have the trade properly represented before the Tariff 
Commission now sitting. 
Mr. C. J. Plunket, Lonsdale-street, Melbourne, has been 
appointed to the commission of the peace. 
Mr. Rivers Langton desires us to state that he has taken a 
residence at St. Kilda, and intends remaining in Australia. 
Mr. Langton is expecting his wife and family, who will shortly 
arrive from England. 
Mr. J. T. Macgowan has been appointed by the Ballarat 
District Chemists’ Association their represenative at the annual 
dinner of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
At last advices Mr. 0. V. Morgan was to leave the colonies 
about the 6th December. 
The secretary of the British Pharmaceutical Conference has 
forwarded to Mr. W. H. Ford, the representative of Victoria at 
the Conference, a nicely executed photograph of the picnic as 
held at Henley-on-Thames during the gathering. 
