Magnolxacece .] 
THE COLONY OE VICTORIA. 
21 
In humid forest-ranges, particularly along shady irrigated ravines, from Mount Disappointment and 
the Dandenong* Ranges through the Western Port district, Gipps Land and the Australian Alps, particularly 
along the rivulets in higher regions and at the sources of rivers, ascending to an elevation of at least 5000 
feet. Found also copiously in Tasmania and the isles of Bass’s Straits. 
A small tree, sometimes attaining a height of 30 feet, or a shrub of variable size, reduced on the 
summits of our Alps to very dwarf growth, but then often widely spreading. Branches terete, often subver- 
ticillate or fasciculate, covered with red-brown or dull purplish pungent-aromatic bark, with some very deciduous 
oblong ovate or roundish scales at their base. Terminal buds, enclosed by caducous generally acuminate 
scales, from 1-4 lines long. Leaves 1-4 inches long, 3-10 lines broad, flat, generally thick coriaceous, some¬ 
times chartaceous, more or less distinctly veined, with a conspicuous middle nerve, blunt or somewhat acute, 
alternate or imperfectly whorled, erect or spreading, either rather opaque on both sides or shining above, or 
occasionally glaucous beneath, often with a reddish tint j their dots pellucid or not, according* to the con¬ 
sistence of the leaves. Pedicels from several lines to frilly an inch long, few, several or numerous, generally 
forming truly terminal umbels, but by the elongation of the branclilets, or by the obliteration of the latter, 
the pedicels may become verticillate or lateral, surrounded by fast-dropping ovate-oblong or linear blunt or 
acuminate bracts, which are very short or upwards of half an inch long, and render, after their fall, by their 
cicatrices, the apex of the branclilets blunt. Unexpanded flower oblique ovate-globose and pointed. Sepals 
dotted, almost constantly two, connected at the base, membranous, brown-reddish, ovate or orbicular, acuminate, 
11-2 lines long; their margins overlapping each other in prseflorescence. Petals oblong- or linear-lanceolate, 
acute, tapering into the base, 2—8 in number, 2—4 lines long, white, with a red or green middle-streak, male 
and female organs frequently in the same flowers. Stamens 9-25. Filaments I line long, rather thick, 
not flat, frequently dilated at the apex, and according* to the width of the connective, to which the anther is 
obliquely outside adnate, the cells of the latter clearly or hardly separated from each other, and finally diverging. 
Anther-cells yellow, ovate, with extrorse dehiscence, about half a line long. Pollen-grains giobose, uneven. 
Ovaries laterally lined by the adnate stigma, mostly one, but sometimes two or three, which seem to advance 
all to maturity. Berries black, of the size of a pea, bursting at last irregularly. Seeds 6—14, angular, 1 5 —1^ 
line long, shining, black, smooth. 
The discovery of Drimys reticulata (J. Hook. Icon. Plant. 896), which produces declinous flowers and 
seemingly a lateral stigma, and the occurrence of di- and tri-gynous flowers in Tasmannia aromatica, render 
the separation of the respective genera untenable, moreover, since already Forster’s plate cleaily shows the 
terminal position of the stigma in Drimys axillaris and the lateral one in Drimys Winter! 
The Drimys dipetala (Tasmannia dipetala and insipida, R. Sr .) occurs sparingly in New South Wales, 
from Mount Lindsay, where it w r as discovered by Walt. Hill, Esq., at least as far south as Illawarra, and 
possibly also within the boundaries of this colony near Cape Howe. It differs from D. aromatica in the very 
blunt base of the leaves, which become almost inflexed-biauriculate, in ovate fruit, with more fleshy pericarp, 
and perhaps also in the flower. T. monticola (Ach. Rich. Sert. d’Astrolabe, ii. 1.19) appears not to differ from 
the latter species. 
The bark, leaves, and most other parts of Drimys aromatica, are of a strong acrid-aromatic taste, and 
may be substituted for the officinal Wintera bark. On account of the pungent aroma of the berries the tree 
received its colonial name. 
No other but the two species here alluded to are knowm to exist in Australia. 
