Vert icordia .] 
LI. MYRTACEiE. 
577 
longitudinal slits as in Chamcelaucium. Ovary 1 -celled, either with 2 or 4 ovules 
on a small excentric placenta, or about 8 or 10 on a more or less peltate placenta. 
Style included or shortly exserted, rarely elongated ; stigma terminal, small, or 
capitate or peltate. Fruit formed by the hardened base of the slightly enlarged 
persistent calyx. Seed usually solitary, testa very thin ; embryo consisting of a 
homogeneous mass of the shape of the seed, with a slender neck lying along 
the flattened apex, entire or perhaps divided at the point into two minute 
cotyledons. — Shrubs with usually a heath-like or Diosma-like aspect, glabrous 
except the cilia on the edges of the leaves. Leaves small, opposite or rarely (in 
V. serrata, a West Australian species) alternate, entire. Flowers usually 
pedicellate in the upper axils, forming often broad terminal leafy corymbs, or 
simple leafy spikes or racemes below the ends of the branches ; the elegantly 
plumose radiating calyx-lobes often coloured, the floral leaves resembling the 
upper stem-leaves, but in some species all the upper leaves short, broad, and 
concave, whilst the lower ones are slender and triquetrous. Bracteoles thin and 
scarious, folded over each other or enclosing the flower-bud, but very deciduous, 
or rarely connate at the base and persistent, the keel often terminating in a point 
at or below the apex, very variable in length even in the same species. 
The genus is limited to Australia. It is characterised by the calyx. 
1. V. Cunninghamii (after Allan Cunningham), Schau. Myrt. Xeroc. 55 ; 
Benth. FI. Austr. iii. 29. A tall erect shrub. Leaves linear, triquetrous or 
concave, obtuse or mucronate, mostly |ln. but sometimes fin. long. Flowers on 
pedicels of about f to -Jin. in the upper axils, forming short terminal almost 
corymbose racemes arranged in a long leafy panicle. Calyx- tube hemispherical, 
10-ribbed ; primary lobes 5, spreading to |in. diameter, each one deeply divided 
into long digitate pectinate-ciliate lobes, the lateral ones reflexed on the tube, but 
no accessory lobes. Petals much shorter than the calyx-lobes, ovate, fringed with 
irregular teeth. Stamens shortly united above the calyx ; anther-cells parallel, 
opening longitudinally, adnate to a connectivum, thickened at the end into a 
small fleshy appendage ; staminodia linear, entire. Style shortly exserted, with 
a ring of hairs round the capitate stigma. Ovules 8 or 10. 
Hab.: Islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, R. Brown. 
4. CALYTHRIX, Labill. 
(Referring to hairs of calyx.) 
(Calycothrix, Endl.) 
Calyx-tube elongated, usually slender, 10-ribbed, adnate to the ovary at the 
base or its whole length ; lobes 5, spreading, short, with scarious margins, the 
midrib produced into a long rigid or hair-like awn, or rarely tapering into a 
shorter point. Petals 5, entire, spreading, deciduous. Stamens indefinite, 
numerous or rarely 7 to 12, in several rows, the inner ones shorter, deciduous ; 
filaments filiform, quite free ; anthers small, versatile ; cells parallel, opening in 
longitudinal slits, connective with a small globular gland-like appendage, rarely 
thickened or conical and larger than the cells. Ovary 1-celled ; ovules 2, 
collaterally erect, on a filiform placenta attached to the base and to the summit 
of the cavity, and sometimes continuous with the style. Style filiform, glabrous, 
with a small capitate stigma. Fruit formed by the lower, usually fusiform, part 
of the calyx-tube, and usually crowned by the persistent remainder of the calyx. 
Seed solitary, cylindrical ; testa very thin ; embryo of the shape of the seed, quite 
straight, very shortly 2-lobed at the upper end. — Heath-like shrubs. Leaves 
scattered (not opposite), small, semiterete or 8 or 4-angled or rarely flat and rigid, 
entire, with occasionally minute hair-like deciduous stipules. Flowers usually 
shortly pedicellate, solitary in the upper axils, either in terminal leafy heads or 
