THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST, 175 
quartette Robert Brown is responsible. Of these, three 
have fiowers of a more or less chalky-white, while the 
fourth (C. aurea), the ‘“‘Golden Cassinia,’’ has flowers of 
that shade of yellow found in our Australian gold coinage. 
In three of the species the arrangement of the inflores- 
cence is corymbose; the flowers of the fourth (C. quinque- 
faria) being grouped in a pyramid. It is, in some cases, 
difficult to differentiate between the small-flowered Heli- 
chrysums and the Casstiuas; the most reliable character 
will probably be found in the presence of scarious bracts 
between the flowers in Cassiiias, which are not present in 
HHelichrysums. C. longifolia comes from the south, and 
exhibits a preference for shady positions, a remark which 
also applies to C. aurea, both species having the compara- 
tively large flattened leaves of plants not usually subject 
to extremely adverse conditions. Bentham, Fl. Austr. 
(3-586) questions the validity of raising C. aurea to the 
dignity of a species, considering it to be merely entitled 
to rank as a var. of C. longifolia. C. aculeata, whose 
narrow cylindrical crowded leaves denote the xerophyte, 
makes a choice of harsh dry conditions, in which to con- 
summate its life-history, and in this it is imitated in a 
lesser degree by its confrere C. quinquefaria. The latter 
is firmly established in both the western and northern 
parts of the State, and is probably an alien in the Port 
Jackson district, as it has only been collected in one 
locality in that area other than Cook’s River, viz., Koga- 
rah. C, aurea appears to be the only member of. this 
group which has been accorded the privilege of making a 
floral display in Britain, an excellent coloured plate of a 
plant of that species, grown in an English nursery, being 
honoured with a place in Edward’s Bot., Reg. t. 764. With 
the exception of C. aurea, the specis noted are gregarious, 
the latter alone displaying an individualistic tendency. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
The following interesting notes on plants collected by 
him during a recent trip to the Northern Rivers are con- 
tributed by Mr. Cheel :— 
