198 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[Phytolaccece. 
of Stylobasium and of Monococcos, which points towards Kiviniese, establish a transit 
to Malvaceae. Phytolacca octandra can here only be regarded as an adventitious 
plant. 
DIDYMOTHECA. 
J. Hooh. in London Joum. of Bot. vi. 278. 
Flowers dioecious. Calyx 4-8-toothed, persistent. Corolla wanting. Male flowers: Anthers 
6-17, uniseriate, almost sessile, basifixed, arranged around rudimentary pistils. Female flowers: 
Ovaries 2-8, adnate to the columella, otherwise free or mutually connate, with a single ascendent 
ovule affixed at the inner angle of each Styles 2-8, continuous to the fruit-axis, subulate, persis¬ 
tent, inward stigmatose. Carpels 2-8, compressed, bivalved, free or partially connate, bursting along 
the back, adnate to a central persistent column. Seeds ascendant, wrinkled, strophiolate. Testa 
crustaceous. Albumen very scanty, fleshy or undeveloped. Embryo uncinate-annular, cylindrical. 
Radicle hardly longer than the cotyledons. 
Suffruticose or fratescent glabrous plants, peculiar to the Australian continent and to Tasmania 
Leaves scattered, fleshy, linear or semicylindrical. Flovoers of both sexes axillary, solitary, short- 
pedicellate. Yalves of the fruit more or less coriaceous.— Moq. in Cand. Prodr. xiii. 1, 36 ; J. Hook 
FI. Tasm. i. 309 ; Cyclotheca, Moq. 1. c. 37. 
The exclusively West Australian genus Gyrostemon, contrasted with Didymotheca, is chiefly 
characterized by pluriseriate stamens, and more numerous stronger compressed and membranous 
carpels. The only genuine species, G. ramulosus, has longer pedicels than the species of Didymotheca. 
But in its pluriseriate stamens Gyrostemon seems to differ from all other genera of the Gyromerous 
group, since also Tersonia, according to our specimens gathered in as well the northern as southern 
parts of Western Australia, shows only single circles of anthers. The male flowers of Tersonia, as 
described by Moquin, belong probably to Gyrostemon ramulosus, both plants growing promiscuously 
and exhibiting considerable external resemblance. 
Didymotheca pleiococca, F. M. Fragm. Pliyt. Aust. i. 202 (adnot.); Cyclotheca Australis, Moq. 
in Cand. Prodr. xiii. i. 37; Gyrostemon ramulosus, Scldechtend. Lmncea, xx. 632. 
Branches hardly angular; calyx almost flat expanded, with more than four teeth; styles and carpels 
three or more; valves partially" connate towards the axis. 
In the Mallee scrub from the Wimmera through the north-western part of this colony, growing specially 
on sandhills j thence extending to St. Vincent’s Gulf, Kangaroo Island, Spencer’s Gulf; occurring also, 
according to Moquin-Tandon, in South-Western Australia; extending seemingly also over Central Australia. 
An erect glabrous opaque shrub, attaining a few feet height. Branches usually but little divergent, 
slightly streaked, in age distantly or remotely cicatrisate, rarely scabrous. Stipules less than 1 line long, 
subulate. Leaves variable in size, from a few lines to 21 inches long, hum 1-2 lines broad, carnulent, 
semicylindrical or linear, flat or often channelled, usually divergent, and at the summit more or less pointed 
and recurved; the midrib more or less distinctly visible. Pedicels recurved, frequently less, seldom more 
than 1 line long. Calyx about 1 line in diameter, its teeth more or less deltoid or semiovate, and of various 
and irregular length. Anthers 8-17, cuneate- and almost tetragonous-obovate, 1-1 line long, pale-yellow, 
furrowed along the connective on both sides, pressed into a circle, leaving the central somewhat elevated space 
of the male caly r x vacant; its cells bursting lengthwise. Pollen-grains yellow, ellipsoid, opening with three 
longitudinal fissures. Styles united at the base, radiating, narrow- or lanceolate-subulate, 1-lf line long, 
stigmatose at the surface. Fruit formed by the coalescence of the carpels towards their inner edge, in outline 
