Labichea.] 
XLIII. LEGUMINOSiE. 
465 
base only. Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, with 2 or rarely 3 ovules, tapering 
into a short style, with a small terminal stigma. Pod oblong or lanceolate, 
oblique, flat, 2-valved. Seeds obovate or oblong, with a hard shining testa ; 
funicle in the species examined expanded below the top into a globular fleshy 
appendage ; albumen copious ; cotyledons flat. — Shrubs or undershrubs. Leaves 
unequally pinnate, or from the common petiole not being developed consisting of 
8 or 5 digitate leaflets or reduced to the terminal leaflet. Stipules small, 
deciduous. Flowers yellow, few together, in short loose axillary racemes. Bracts 
small and deciduous. Bracteoles none. 
The genus is limited to Australia, and is very nearly allied to Cassia. — Benth. 
Sepals 5. Petals 5. Anthers unequal. Leaflets digitate, without any 
common petiole 1 . L. nitida. 
Sepals 4. Petals 4. Bushy shrub. Leaves simple or digitate. Anthers 
equal 2. L. rupestris. 
Leaflets oblong, blunt, minutely apiculate, one anther twice as long as the 
other 3. L. Buettneriana. 
1. la. nitida (shining), Benth. FI. Austr. ii. 293, and F. v. M. Fragm. x. 7. 
A rigid shrub, with divaricate slightly pubescent branches. Leaflets usually 5, 
digitate, without a common petiole, from obovate-oblong to elliptical, obtuse with 
a pungent point, coriaceous and shining above, the central one J to ljin. long, 
the lateral ones smaller, all shortly petiolulate. Racemes short and loose. 
Flowers much larger than in L. rupestris. Sepals 5, about 4 lines long. Petals 
5, the lower ones frilly Jin. long, the upper ones rather smaller. One anther 3 
lines long or at least half as long again as the other, linear-cylindrical. Ovary 
very villous, with 3 ovules in the flowers examined. Pod lanceolate oval, 
about lin. long, compressed and slightly pubescent. Seeds 4, turgid ovate, dark- 
brown. Strophiole pale depressed-globose f line. 
Hab.: Bockingham Bay and Hinchinbrook Island. 
2. L. rupestris (found upon rocks), Benth. in Mitch. Trop. Austr. 342, and 
FI. Austr. ii. 293. A small hard bushy shrub, the branches pubescent or at 
length glabrous. Leaflets in some specimens mostly 3-foliolate, the terminal one 
linear-oblong, 1 to 2in. long, coriaceous, with a pungent point, the lateral ones 
much smaller, in other specimens most or all digitate, with 3 or 5 less unequal 
leaflets, without any common petiole. Racemes short dense and few-flowered. 
Sepals 4, about 2J lines long. Petals about the same length. Anthers both 
nearly of the same size, scarcely shorter than the petals. Ovules 2. Pod short, 
acuminate, frequently 1 -seeded only, but not seen ripe. — L. digitata, Benth. in 
Mitch. Trop. Austr. 273. 
Hab.: Sandstone rocks and ravines about Mount Pluto, Mitchell; Newcastle Bange, F. v. 
Mueller (in leaf only). 
The two forms I had distinguished, with 1-foliolate or very unequally 3-foliolate leaves, and 
with nearly equal 5-foliolate leaves, may be found on diiferent branches of the same specimen. — 
Benth. 
3. I,. Buettneriana (after Dr. Alex. Buettner), F. r. M. Fragm. xii. 18, 
and Chon, and Drugg., June 1882. Plant erect, branches slender, thinly silky. 
Leaves pinnate, petioles very short, leaflets 3 to 11, oval oblong, minutely 
apiculate, reticulate-veined above, silky beneath ; stipules fugaceous. Racemes 
usually many flowered, 2 to 5in. long on short peduncles. Bracts and bracteoles 
of about equal length, lanceolate, one-third the length of the calyx. Sepals 4, 
about 5 lines long, outer lanceolate-cymbiform, inner falcate-lanceolate, mem- 
branous. Petals 4, yellow, obovate, cuneate at the base. Filaments very short. 
Anthers yellow, alternately long and short. Style setaceous, glabrous, 1J line 
long. Stigma very minute, ovary densely silky. — F. v. M. l.c. 
Hab.: Endeavour Biver, Persieli (F. v. M., who says that this species may be easily 
distinguished from others of Australia by the shape and bluntness of its leaflets). 
