200 
PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO 
[. Phytolaccea. 
Codonocarpus cotinifolius. —Gyrostemon cotinifolius, Desf. in Mem, du Mus. viii. 116, t. 10; 
Moq. in Cand. Prodr, xiii. 1, 39 ; G. pungens, IAndl, in Mitch, Eastern, Austr. ii. 120; G. (Codonocarpus) 
acaciformis, F, M. in Linncea, xxv. 439; Hymenotheca acaciformis, F, M. Fragm, Phyt, Austr, i. 202, ii. 
181. 
Peaces lanceolate or obovate or rhomboid , blunt or acute, slender-stalked; fruit-pedicels about twice as 
long as the fruit; seeds wrinkled. 
Bare on the pine-plains near Lake Hindmarsh, more numerous in the sandy Mallee scrub, back of • 
Kulkyne, at the Murray River, J. Dallachy; beyond the Victorian territory towards the junction of the rivers 
Murray and Darling near Golgol, and in the bushy desert along the Darling, Sir Th. Mitchell; near the 
Barrier Ranges, Dr. Beckler; on Cooper’s Creek, A. C. Gregory; between the Flinders Ranges and Lake 
Torrens, F. M.; on the Murchison River, A. Oldfield; Baie des Chiens-marins, Gaudichaud. 
A tall shrub or more frequently a small tree, occasionally, however, attaining a height of about 40 feet; 
in its narrow-leaved form resembling some phyllodineous Acaciee. The stem sometimes partially procumbent 
under ground, attaining often hilly 1 foot in diameter. Wood light, pale, slightly fragrant. Alburnum 
greenish. Bark at first fulvous, in age almost black, as well longitudinally as transversely rimose. Branches 
stout, more or less twisted, rather smooth, gTey-fulvid. Branchlets moderately or very spreading, red- or 
yellow-brownish; the younger ones cylindrical, pruinous- or glaucous-grey and pendent. Leaves bitter and 
nauseous to the taste, reminding of that of horse-radish according to an early discoverer, rather carnulent, 
quite flat, glaucous, of equal color on both sides, 1-2| inches long, J-2 inches broad, tapering into a slender 
petiole; their midnerve much more conspicuous than the spreading’ lateral nerves ; their veins not distinct. 
Stipules only about ^ line long’, subulate. Racemes of male flowers, according to specimens discovered by 
Dr. Beckler during the Victorian Expedition, axillary and terminal, with few or several solitary pedicels, 
attaining with added comparatively short peduncle a length of 1J-2J inches. Rachis slender. Pedicels 
hardly 1 fine long, with two lateral extremely small readily overlooked subulate or gland-like bracteoles, and 
a deltoid- or ovate-lanceolate deciduous bract at the base. Calyx only about 1 line in diameter, waved at 
the margin and minutely 7—9-toothed. Stamens surrounding a circular elevated at the vertex broad- 
impressed barren ovary. Anthers 15-20 in number, about 1 line long, tetragonous- and clavate-aflipsoid, 
yellow, bursting longitudinally at the margin, with a very narrow connective. Pollen-grains smooth, 
sulphur-colored, ovate-globose, trifissured. Female flowers either few or several, forming axillary racemes of 
2-3 inches length, or their pedicels arising singly from the axis of the leaves, after the lapse of which consti¬ 
tuting infra-terminal racemes. Pedicels when flower-bearing about J inch, when fruit-bearing about 1 inch 
long, rather dissite, slightly thickened towards the summit. Calyx 2— lines in diameter, laxly surrounding 
the ovaries, slightly waved and bluntly or acutely denticulated. Fruit-column slender and cylindrical towards 
the base, by the perfect coalescence of rudimentary carpels turbinately widened at the summit and there about 
3 lines thick and rough from longitudinal alternately higher and lower placental elevations, after the lapse of 
the carpels surrounded at the base within the persistent calyx by a radiating and ascending-fringed disk, which 
is formed by the persistence of the lower portion of the repla, concave and stigmatose-papillose at the vertex, 
where some papillae arise often in almost a concentric disposition within the marginal stigma series, thus 
indicating* the existence of more or less verticillate suppressed pistils. Styles or rather stigmas fulvous, by 
close mutual approach brought into a circle, only fine long, bluntly and rather rigidly subulate. Young 
fruit pear-shaped, older one more bell-shaped. Carpels in number 30-^t0, measuring 4-5 lines in length, 
1-1 J line in breadth, very compressed; the dorsal line extremely narrow, green and herbaceous ; the valves 
otherwise delicate-membranous, oblique cuneate-oblong', gently excised towards the summit at the inner 
angle, at first coherent, at last secedent, bursting along the whole inner edge and finally at the base, but not 
along’ the dorsal suture. Seeds dark-brown, opaque, 1-1 h line long, placed in each alternate carpel at and 
below the summit (since their turgidity would not admit of being arrayed in a single cyclus within the fruit), 
roundisli-ovate, with an imperfect sinus from the point of insertion towards the middle, copiously transverse- 
