Malvacec 
THE COLONY OE VICTORIA. 
159 
cylinder. Anthers renate, bivalved, one-celled. Ovary minute, barren, with conglutinated styles. 
Female flowers: Petals oblique ovate, connected by the very short staminal tube into an almost 
urceolar-bellshaped corolla. Anthers minute, subsessile around the top of the cylinder. Ovary one, 
with 3-6 cells. Ovules solitary in each cell, suspended from a minute soon obliterated column. 
Styles 3-6, connate at the base, inside longitudinally stigmatose. Capsule membranous , one-celled , 
utricular , at the summit short - 5 -6-valved, one-seeded , irregularly bursting. Seed smooth. Albu¬ 
men scanty. Cotyledons folded, roundish, flat. Radicle ascending , cylindrical, as long as the 
cotyledons. 
Lepidote, shrubby plants, restricted to the southern and south-w r estern parts of the Australian 
continent. Branchlets often spinescent. Leaves mostly fasciculate, small, entire, or near the apex 
toothed. Stipules adnate at the base. Flowors small, axillary, sessile or short-pedicellate, solitary or 
a few together. Petals yellowish or towards the summit purplish. 
The relationship of this genus is nearer to Plagianthus than to Lawrencia, to which it was 
referred in the Flora Tasmaniea, From the former Halothamnus is easily distinguished by the 5- or 6- 
celled ovary, by the early suppression of the columella, and by the peculiar texture and dehiscence of 
the pericarp. From the typical form of Plagianthus (P. divaricatus) it differs moreover in longer and 
narrower stigmas and, according to the illustration of the former in the Bot. Mag. t. 3271, in very 
scanty albumen. Free, almost indehiscent carpels distinguish Lawrencia. The salsolaceous genus 
Halothamnus, established by Jaubert and Spach, is reduced by Moquin Tandon (conf. D. C. Prodr. 
xiii. ii. 172) to Caroxylon. 
Halothamnus microphyllus, F. M. Second Gen. Rep. p. 10; Plagianthus microphyllus, F. M. 
Fragm. Pliytogr. Austr. i. 29. 
In the inland-tracts of the Colony of Victoria, on sandy but especially on subsaline localities, or in the 
so-called “ saltbush country;” for instance in the vicinity of Lake Hindmarsh (Dallachy), and thence extending 
through many parts of the Murray Desert; in South Australia occurring also in the litoral tracts, for instance 
on the Coorong, on Lake Albert, on Lake Alexandrinee, at Port Adelaide, Port Gawler, Port Pirie and other 
places on Spencer’s Gulf. 
A low rigid hush, usually much branched, oftener divergent than strict-growing, quite of the aspect of 
a salsolaceous plant. Branches and branchlets terete, lepidote-downy, glabrescent. Leaves carnulent, linear- 
or broad-lanceolate, or linear- or obovate-cuneate, channelled or flat or slightly revolute at the margin, 
varying in length from l|-6 lines, rarely folly to 1 inch long, usually from f-3 lines broad, sessile or tapering 
into an indistinct petiole, not unfrequently provided with three acute teeth at the apex, which are from |-1 
line long. Stipules about J line long, semilanceolate- or linear-subulate. Calyx more or less distinctly five- 
folded, l§-2 lines long, obconical- or cupular-campanulate, with small deltoid teeth. Petals glabrous or 
nearly so, transparent, finely veined; those of the male flower 2-2 \ lines long, bidentate at the apex; those 
of the female flowers shorter and more connected. Staminal tube of male flowers 1-1J line long, glabrous, 
dissolved at the summit into short filaments, which bear yellow anthers with a very imperfect longitudinal 
septum; the valves of the anthers, as normal in Malvacese, revolute at the extremities, thus giving to the 
short septum-like ridge an apparent transverse position. Ovary of male flower 1, abortive, bearing short 
permanently connected styles. Staminal tube of the female flower veiy short, with very minute yellowish 
anthers. Styles about 1J line long, almost capillary, recurved, outside glabrous. Columella of the ovary 
central, only J line long, subulate. Septa of the ovary extremely tender and early perishing. Capsule 
globose-ovate, 1line long. One seed only developed in each fruit, about 1 line long, renate-spliasroid. 
Testa brown, smooth. 
Lawrencia squamata (Nees, in Lehin. PI. Preiss. i. 242) is referable to this genus. 
