Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/545

 MAr. vacv. x, 3'u. Tiliacee, Jus. Sterculiacee, Vest. Buttnerieee, Brown.--These several families, of which the /irst is by far the most extensive, have been viewed by Mr. Brown, as so many allied orders of one natural clas, to which the general title of Malvace might be applied. About thirty*six species of these orders collectively, r preserved in the present Herbarium, referrible at least to eleven genera, of which nine are most abundant in form a characteristic feature of) the botany of India, md the equinoctial parts of South America. Fourteen species of Hibiscus and Sida were observed on the intratropical Coasts of Australia, beyond which also, ou the opposi shores of the continent, each genus has been remarked. One species of Bombax with polyandrous flowers, and sub- spherical obtusely pentagonel capsules, was discovered upon the East Coast, in ,about latitude 14 �h, and nearly the western extreme of the same parallel, it appeared much more abundant. Of $terculia which is scarcely to be found beyond the tropics iu other countries, a species exists in New South Wales in the latitude of 34 � which railel it is more frequent in the western interior, and in tha direction it has been traced to the distance of three hundred. miles from the sea-coast. The genus is also foun on the North and North-west Coasts, where the species' assume more particularly the habits of their congeners in India. Among the plants of this family iu the Herbarium is a spe- cies of Helicteris (as the genus stands at present) which observed on the North-west Coast bearing fruit, wanting the contortion that characterizes the genus. This plant, together with three other described species, having straight capsules, may hereafter be separated from that Linnean geuus and constitute a new one of themselves. Grewia, Corchorns, Triumfetta, and Waltherin, have been

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