154 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ava., 1898. 
We feel sure that all fruitgrowers will be pleased to note that a watchful 
eye is kept over their interests, and will gladly assist in every way in their 
power to torward what cannot indeed be called an experiment, since it has been 
clearly proved to be a method of treatment affording the best results at the 
Cape. Still, climatic differences may exist which will not justify us in saying 
authoritatively that, because the experiment has been successful in South 
Africa, it must necessarily be so here. At all events, the probabilities are very 
much in favour of success, and we have every hope that Mr. Benson’s experi- 
ments may bear good fruit. 
Botany. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLORA OF NEW GUINEA. 
By F. MANSON BAILEY, F.L.S., 
Colonial Botanist. 
Iw the present paper, and in others to follow, are noticed all new and interest- 
ing plants observed or collected by Lord Lamington’s party during a recent 
yisit to New Guinea. I shall, where such course may seem to me advisable, give 
fresh descriptions of some of the old-named species, having had the oppor- 
tunity of observing them in their native habitat. By this visit I have been 
enabled to notice the existence of parts or form of parts which could not be 
observed in dried specimens. I made written descriptions of the plants as soon 
as they were collected on account of the entire want of proper convenience for 
drying botanical specimens on board the ‘“ Merrie England,” and this applies 
more particularly to the succulent plants. I am extremely sorry for this 
inability to prepare good herbarium specimens, because copious notes, or 
descriptions enabling one to fully determine plants and to prepare descriptions 
for publication, leave one without what is most desirable to have—viz., dupli- 
cate specimens to forward to various oversea botanic departments. 
Order AMPELIDEZ. 
VITIS, Linn. 
V. cordata, Wall. (Cissus cordata, Roxb.) A tall glabrous climber. Leaves 
alternate, elongate-cordate, the basal lobes rounded, 2 to 43 in. long, the 
margins with minute white glandular teeth, midrib and lateral nerves . often 
purplish. Cymes leaf opposel, spreading to about 2 in. deep-crimson ; 
peduncles about 1 in. long. Flowers thick, juicy ; buds 14 lines long. Calyx 
iinute, truncate. Petals 4, thick, cymbiform, with inflexed points. Stamens 
4, filaments very short. Anthers large golden-yellow, hypogynous disk 
annular, prominent; style long as the flowers, 4-angled, tapering from the 
base to a terminal stigma. 
, Hab. : Mambare River, New Guinea, May, 1898. This plant enjoys a wide range in India 
and other parts, including tropical Australia, and has been collected as far south as Bundaberg. 
‘I have, however, never met it so richly coloured with us as in New Guinea. 
Order LEGUMINOS, 
PTEROCARPUS, Linn. 
P, indicus, Willd., var. A smal] tree, branchlets angular, bearing numerous 
-lenticels. Leaves deciduous, alternate, pinnate, about 6 or 9 in. Jong, including 
petiole, which like the rhachis is slender; leaflets irregular, some being opposite, 
others alternate, all petiolulate, oblong-acuminate, 2 to 3 in, long, the points 
eften long. Racemes or racemose-panicle about 5 in. long. The flowers of 
