164 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
\Mahacece. 
Styles capillary, 1J-2J lines long, connate at and near the base. Fruit-column persistent. Carpels 1-1 \ 
rarely 2 lines long, usually depressed below the bistriate apex, more or less strongly netted and often also 
asperous at the commissural sides, glabrous or sliort-downy and sometimes asperous at the back, very rarely 
narrow-winged at the angles, not distinctly bursting, with or without a terminal cleft. Seeds about £ line 
long’, brown, slightly downy or glabrous, somewhat gibbose, rather pointed at the apex. 
On this occasion it has been frustraneously attempted to limit the plants here consociated to more than 
one species, although the end-forms show such marked discrepancies, that without a careful examination of 
the plant, in a living and preserved state, the identity of the formerly assumed spurious species could not 
have been ascertained. Amongst extra-Australian plants S. gTewioides from tropical Africa shows considerable 
resemblance to ours. Amongst Australian congeners S. corrugata will be found nearest to S. petrophila, of 
which S. pheeotricha proves a variety. The latter is quite shrubby, grows to greater height, produces larger 
flowers with more pointed lobes of the calyx, which excel the length of the carpels and become somewhat 
scarious in age. We possess this plant from the vicinity of Sharks Bay, where most likely Gay’s Sida calyx- 
hymenia was procured, which according to its description seems identical with S. petrophila. Of this or of 
S. corrugata, it may be presumed, S. virgata will prove to be a variety. In S.W. Australia occurs, probably 
as an introduced plant, S. triloba ; the specimens from tbence accord sufficiently with the descriptions of S. 
leiophloia, S. rupestris and S. Hookeriana (Miq. in Lehm. PI. Preiss. i. 241). 
Sect IV. Abutilon. 
Flowers bisexual. Petals exserted. Ovules more than one in each cell. Stigmas terminal, capi- 
tellate. Carpels connate into a loculicidal and partially septicidal capsule, sometimes secedent, 
Sida Abutilon, Linne , Sp. Plant. 963: Abutilon Avicenna?, Gcertn. de Fruct. et Seminibu s, ii. 251 
t. 135 ; Abutilon Behrii, F. M. in Transact. Phil . Sac. Yict. i. 13. 
Annual, velvet-hairy ; stem branchless or simply branched, erect; leaves lobeless, cordate, acuminate, 
repand or slightly crenate, on long petioles; stipules linear-subulate, deciduous; pedicels stout, axillary, 
solitary or several terminal, articulated near or above the middle; lobes of the calyx semilanceolate-deltoid, 
on both sides downy ; petals rather large, yellow, oblique-obcordate, almost perfectly glabrous, not much 
longer than the calyx ; tube of stamens short, glabrous, very turgid; styles glabrous, 9 or more, connate 
towards tlie base, terminated by capitellate stigmas; ovaries with few ovules in each cell; limit-column about 
twice as long as broad, attenuated towards the middle; carpels 9 or more , longer than the calyx , compressed , 
rostrate , outward downy, to about the middle dehiscent; seeds black, somewhat scabrous. 
In dry beds of lagoons adjoining* the Murray River; beyond the Colony of Victoria on the Hirer 
Darling and on many of its tributaries, gregarious at its localities, occurring also in the warmer parts of Asia 
and in South Europe. 
An herb, seldom more, oftener less than 1J foot high. Root flexuose or almost straight, cylindrical, 
with few fibrilles. Stem cylindrical, usually eveu in age not glubrescent. Stipules 2 or a few lines long, 
early dropping. Leaves broad-cordate, vividly green, measuring from U-5 inches, flat, with a narrow basal 
sinus, on both pages velutinous, but in age more scattered-hairy at the surface; the five primary nerves 
aiising from the base of the leaves, emitting* divergent secondary nerves and numerous veins. Pedicels from 
inch long. Calyx when flower-bearing* 3-4 lines long, when fruit-bearing a little longer, cleft rather 
deeper than the middle. Petals nearly \ inch long, finely nerved and veined. Column of stamens down- 
waid much expanded, not attenuated into a conspicuous slender tube, onlj T about 1J line long, exserting 
from the summit free and more or less connate filaments of nearly 1 line length. Anthers numerous, yellow. 
Styles hardly longer than the stamens. Stigmas depressed-globose. Fruit-column stout, encircled by the 
carpels, ncai 1\ 3 line& long*, upwards thickened and then hearing very short funicles. Carpels in age fully 
