Neue Litteratur. 
124 
Syst. Veg. III. 897. anno 1826), but Rumphius represents in Vol. IV, on 
plate LXXX, the r Daun bagge“ or „Haun pantev“ of the Malays with 
leaves spreadingly spinular and with gradually much pointed individual 
fruits. 
The Java-plant may again be different from tbat. of Amboina, parti- 
eularly so as many species of Pandanus are extraordinarily local, because 
Kurz (in Seemann's Journal of Botany for 1867. p. 127) describes the 
leaves as very thick, the aggregated mass of fruits as considerably longer 
tban broad, and the fruits below the middle as cohering or connate by 
2—4 together, although in the delineation, tab. 64, they are figured, but 
perhaps erroneously, as merely in close apposition. They are however 
very different in form to those of Hombronia edulis , and upwards much 
more slender, even more so than those of Rumphius’s species; they are 
ending indeed pyramidally. As the specific name edulis is preoccupied by 
Du Petit Thouars for a very different Madagascar-Pcm^owws (Desvaux, 
Journal de Botanique. 1808. p. 47) as duly reeorded by Sprengel, 
Steudel, Kunth and Dietrich, we must resort to the name Hombronia 
as the next available for the designation of the species brought by Sir 
William M’Gregor, by which means then also the dedication will not 
be destroyed, no otlier genus bearing Mons. Hombron’s name. Professor 
J. B. Balfour (in the Journal of the Linnean Society. XVII. 45) also 
leaves Hombronia edulis still queringly under Pandanus dubius. In the 
series of the Annales des Sciences naturelles liere is Avanting tome I of 
serie 6 (1876), where Alex. Braun, at page 291, refers to tliis Hombronia, 
possibl} r under a new designation.] 
Mueller, Ferdinand, Baron yon, Descriptions of new Australian plants, with 
occasional otlier annotations. [Continued.] (Extra print from Victorian 
Naturalist, December 1890.) 
[Lepidium Mervalli. 
Annual, dwarf, weak, nearly or quite glabrous; leaves linear, entire 
or pröduced into a few narrow lobes; racemes short; flowers extremely 
small, unprovided with petals : stamens four ; anthers about as broad as 
long; stigma sessile, fruits quite small, on pedicels of about double tlieir 
length, rhomboid-orbicular, with a very shallow terminal intrusion, reticular- 
venulated; seeds yellowish-brown, smooth. 
Near Parker’s Range; Edwin Merrall. Height 3—5 inches, so far 
as known. Leaves 1 /3—1 inch long. Well developed fruits measuring 
about Vio inch. 
This plant difi'ers from L. ruderale in its very short stems, extreme 
norrowness of leaves, broader pedicels, fruits of lesser size, as broad as 
long, rather more turgid, conspicuously venulated, somewhat blunter at the 
edge and with a still smaller terminal emargination. 
In L. Merralli rather the lower half of the fruit is the broadest, wliile 
in L. ruderale the reverse takes place. L. leptopetdlum occurs on the 
Lachlan-River (F. v. M.); L. rotundum at Cooper’s Creek (Flierl); L. 
monoplocoides on Yorke’s Peninsula (Tepper); L. foliosum at Port Fairy 
(Dattari). 
Astrotricha Biddulpli iana. 
Tall; leaves crowded, comparatively short, broadish-linear, acute, only 
slightly recurved at the margin, above glabrous, beneatli as well as the 
branches bearing, a close very thin palebrownish stellular indument; umbels 
amply paniculated, the whole inflorescence glabrous ; peduncles elongated ; 
involucral bracts quite small, almost semi-lanceolar; pedicels many times 
longer than the flowers, capillary-thin ; calyx-lobes minute, deltoid ; breadth 
of the petals quite half of tlieir length; anthers greyish; young fruit 
inoderately turgid. 
Near Mt. Playfair; Mrs. H. Biddulph. 
Height to 6 feet; difters from Astrotricha ledifolia in still narrovver 
leaves, probably always glabrous panicle , longer and thinuer pedicles, 
rather smaller flowers with seemingly purplisli dark-coloured petals and 
perhaps also in the shape of the ripe fruit, which as 3 ’et is not known. 
