186 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Polygalea:. 
Sect. I. PROSTHEMOSPERMA. 
Leaves all or tlie upper ones minute, bract-like. Exterior sepals disunited, about half as long 
as the almost orbicular wings. Capsule devoid of a distinct stipes. Seeds short-downy. Strophiole 
expanded at the chalaza into a membranous appendage. 
Comesperma scoparium, Steetz, in Lehm . Plant. Preiss. ii. 309 ; F. M. Fragm. Phytogr. Austr. 
i. 145. 
Shrubby, erect; branches strict, furrowed; leaves minute , subulate , oppressed, remote; pedicels stout, 
axillary , spuriously and distantly spicate, at the base minutely imbricate-bracteate, very short; bracteoles 
almost equal, tardily secedent, broad- or orbicular-ovate ; exterior sepals free, about half as long as the interior 
ones, equal, subovate; inner sepals roundish, blue ; posterior petals bearded; filaments to near the middle 
monadelplious, thence free; capsule coriaceous , broadly cuneate-obovate , margined ; seeds short-downy; 
strophiole terminated at the chalaza by a narrow-semielliptical downy membrane of more than half the 
length of the seed ; cotyledons oval. 
In the sandy desert near the Murray River, Dallachy; found also in the Darling Desert, near the 
Fitzgerald Ranges, and by Mr. Oldfield near the Murchison River, probably dispersed over many of the 
intermediate desert tracts. 
A shrubby broom-like plant, from 1 to a few feet high. Branches striped, slightly scabrous, attenuated 
and occasionally pungent at the summit. Leaves about 1 line long, rigid, very acute, flat at the inner side. 
Pedicels arising solitary from the axis of the leaves, short and stout or almost obliterated, at the base 
provided with a few minute scale-like bracts, which gradually pass into bracteoles ; the latter nearly alike in 
form, minutely ciliolated, line long, lightly con curved at the margin. Exterior sepals about 1J line 
long, green; inner sepals *2J-3 lines long, blunt, faintly veined, hardly shorter than tlie carina, tapering into 
a very short unguis. Anterior petal almost glabrous, indistinctly three-lobed. Posterior petals a little longer 
than the anterior, to which they are half adnate, bearded towards the middle inside. Filaments connate 
towards the base, free above the middle. Anthers about J line long, yellow, narrow- and truncate-ellipsoid. 
Style glabrous, curved-filiform, cernuous at the apex. Stigma oblique-terminal, with a basilar gland. Capsule 
not contracted into a stipes, slightly and obliquely notched and pointed at the summit, 2J-3 lines long. 
Valves traversed by a faint impressed midnerve, coriaceous, prominently margined. Seeds ellipsoid, rather 
longer than 1 line, short-downy, with no longer hair either at the chalaza or at the hilum. Chalazal 
appendage downy, livid, compressed, at least half as long as tlie seed, formed by the strophiole, which in a 
narrow line is decurrent from the hilum. Testa crust-like, black-brown. Albumen scanty. Cotyledons oval, 
about four times longer than the radicle. 
The only other species of Comesperma, referable to the section Prosthemosperma, 0 corn's sparingly in 
the southern part of East Australia, and is described by Dr. Steetz under the name C. sphaerocarpum. It 
differs in herbaceous growth, linear-lanceolate larger leaves on the lower part of tlie stem, longer pedicels, 
absence of imbricate bracts, narrower longer already before antliesis secedent bracteoles, less concave and 
blunt exterior sepals, an almost orbicular slightly downy capsule, which is neither conspicuously margined 
nor slightly notched at the apex, and finally in longer hair around the chalaza. In external appearance, 
however, C. spinosimi (F. M. Fragm. Phyt. Austr. i. 144) stands much nearer to our plant; it differs in 
divergent more angular pungent and less furrowed branchlets, in longer pedicels, want of imbricate bracts, 
less thickly margined and more towards the base attenuated stronger pointed capsules, exappendiculate seeds 
clothed with the long* silky hair usual amongst cong'eners. Under the existence of this allied and normal 
species, and under the consideration that also in C. virgatum and other species the strophiole extends to a 
chalazal membrane, it becomes unadvisable to separate the section Prosthemosperma from the genus, from 
which it otherwise might be regarded as distinct as Catacoma. With the latter it shares the terminal appen- 
