150 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Buettnenacem. 
separate position may be assigned to C. Gaudichaudii, which moreover in habit differs so much from the 
two other species. AH the other described Australian Commersonise are referable to Rulingia. C. platy- 
phylla (D. C. Prodr. i. 486 ; Asa Gray, in Bot. of Unit. Stat. Explor. Exped. p. 188) seems only a variety of 
C. echinata. 
RULINGIA. 
JR. Br. in Bot. Mag. 2191. 
Calyx five-cleft, valvate in aestivation, ebracteolate. Petals sessile, dilated and indexed or saccate 
at the base, ligulate at the summit, disconnected with the stami/nal tube. Staminodia dilated, simgly 
interjacent between the fertile filaments. The latter opposite to the petals, 5, bearing a solitary didy- 
mous anther with extrorse longitudinal dehiscence. Ovary sessile, five-celled. Ovules usually 2 in 
each cell, ascending from its inner angle. Styles coherent or rarely obliterated. Stigmas minute. 
Capsule densely armed vnth thorns or acute tubercles or bristles, opening by loculicidal dehiscence , 
five-valved. Seeds strophiolate. Bmbi x yo straight, in the axis of a fleshy albumen. Cotyledons flat. 
Radicle cylindrical, inferior. 
Shrubs, dispersed over the eastern and western extremities of extratropical Australia, very rare 
in the tropical desert portion of the Australian Continent. Leaves alternate/ various in form, almost 
always toothed. Stipules small, secedent. Flowers often small, collected in axillary or lateral cymes. 
Calyx inside white, pink, rarely yellow. Capsule usually star-hairy.— Endl. Gen. Plant. 997; Steetz, 
in Lehm. PI. Preiss. ii. Sol. 
The Indian, Madagascar, and more particularly tropical American genus Buettneria, -with which 
Rulingia was formerly confused, differs (as well pointed out by Dr. Steetz) in unguiculate petals, which 
with their cucullate portion adhere to the staminal tube, in the septicidal dehiscence of the fruit, in 
the absence of the strophiole and of the albumen and further in spirally coiled cotyledons. 
Some Ruhngise bear considerable resemblance to certain rhamnaceous plants of the genera 
Trymalium and Pomaderris. 
Rulingia pannosa, B. Br. in Bot. Mag . 2191; R. rugosa, Steetz , in Lehm. PI. Preiss. ii. 352; 
Buettneria dasyphylla, Gay, in Mem. du Mm. (VHist. Nat. x. 200, t. 12; B. inodora, Gay, in Diet, des 
Selene. Nat. t. 140; Commersonia dasyphylla, Andr. Bot. JRep. t. 603. 
Leaves large, either ovate- and oblong-lanceolate and lobeless or in circumscription subcordate with 
3-5 acute lobes, always rounded or cordate at the base, upwards long contracted, irregularly toothed or 
crenulated, rarely some quite entire, above less densely haiiy than beneath; stipules and bracteoles subulate- 
and lanceolate-linear; calyx and corolla white; lobes of the former deltoid-ovate; ligule blunt, one-nerved, 
hardly as long as the inferior part of the petal; staminodia downy towards the apex; bristles of the capsule 
elongated , scattered-hairy. 
Amongst gTanite boulders of the Buffalo Range, also in the vicinity of Mount Imlay; thence distributed 
over granite tracts of New South Wales as far north as the Clarence River, and westward as far as New 
England. 
A shrub from 1A-6 feet high. Root divided into many fibrilligerous branches, outside pale-brown. 
Stern-bark brown or blackish, tough, finally glabrous. Branches clothed with a tomentum of spreading 
fasciculate grey-fulvous hair. Stipules brown, membranous, hairy, 2-4 lines long, rarely bifid, deciduous. 
Leaves more herbaceous than coriaceous; the lower ones on longer the upper ones on shorter stalks; those 
of plants which are one to two years old more or less deeply cleft; the lobes approaching* to a semilanceolate 
or deltoid form, the terminal lobe the longest; the leaves of the shrub when more advanced in age lobeless, 
1J-5 inches long; all spreading-nerved, copiously veined, wrinkled above, clothed on both pages, but more 
