107 
No. 16. 
Tristania confeita, R.Br. 
The Brush Box. 
(Natural Order MYRTACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Tristania, R.Br. 
Calyx-tube turbinate-campanulate or open, adnate to the ovary at the base, the free part broad ; 
lobes 5, short. 
Petals. —Five, broad, much imbricate. 
Stamens. —Indefinite, more or less united in bundles opposite the petals, the filaments or free 
parts filiform, inflected or rarely erect. 
Anthers. —Versatile, the cells parallel, opening longitudinally. 
Ovary. —Inferior, half superior or free except the broad base, but included in the. calyx-tube, flat 
or convex on the top and very rarely depressed in the centre round the style, 3-celled, with 
several horizontal or recurved ovules in each cell. 
Style. —Filiform, with a more or less capitate stigma. 
Capsule. —Adnate or almost free, enclosed in or protruding from the persistent calyx, opening 
loculicidally in 3 valves. 
Perfect seeds. —Where known, few in each cell, linear-cuneate or expanded at the end into a flat 
wing; testa thin, embryo straight; cotyledons broad and folded over each other, as long as or 
longer than the radicle. 
Tall shrubs or trees. 
Leaves. —Alternate or irregularly verticillate at the ends of the branches, or in one species opposite, 
penni veined. 
Flowers .—Small, yellow or white, in pedunculate axillary cymes. 
Bracts. —Very deciduous or entirely wanting. (B. FI. iii, 261.) 
Botanical description. —Species, T conferta, R.Br. in Ait., Hort. Ketv., ed. 2, 
IV, 417. 
A tall tree with a smooth brown deciduous bark and dense foliage, the young shoots often clothed 
with spreading hairs, otherwise glabrous except the inflorescence, the buds of the succeeding 
year covered with large imbricate coloured scales. 
Leaves .—Alternate, crowded at the ends of the branches so as to appear verticillate, petiolate, 
ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or rarely almost obtuse, usually 3 to 6 inches long, 
penniveined and minutely reticulate underneath. 
Flowers .—In cymes of 3 to 7, usually on the young wood below the cluster of leaves, the floral leaves 
mostly abortive, the peduncle flattened, j to ^ inch long, or rarely elongated. 
