Page:The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News 5(227).djvu/5

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The Botany of the North-western Districts of Western Australia.

A species of stylobasium, probably the original species of Desfontaines grows on all the limestone hills to the north of the valley of the lakes. The natural order myrtaceæ, sub-order chamelanciæ, produces many fine species over the whole of the country examined to the north and west. A pretty species of genetyllus, growing about a foot high, with short, fleshy, decussate leaves, grows plentifully on the sand plains to the east and west of the Hill river : the barren shoots are numerous, growing close together and quite upright, about a foot high ; they are generally unbranched and form a sort of column ; the flowering branches are about the same length, much branched,and they lie close to the ground, and spreading themselves in all directions round the plant which produces them ; the involucres are rose coloured about an inch wide at the top, and as much in depth : these cups grow quite upright, sometimes more than a hundred of them are seen on the ground, in a circle round the celumn of barren branches, and unless the plants are carefully examined there is nothing to indicate! their connexion, the flowering branches generally shoot out below ground. Another pretty species of this genus grows about a foot high, with heath like leaves, the drooping heads of the flowers are surrounded by glabrous bracts of a deep rose colour. Two more new species geratyll[u]s are found with small heath-like leaves, and small bracts. The genus chamelancium produces several fine species. By far the largest shrub of the order known to me is found on Bandy ground near all the rivers, from the Moore to the Irwin, it grows from fifteen to twenty feet high, bearing numerous corymbs of large lilac flowers, the sepals are broad and very short, without liliæ: the style bearded, and young plants of this fine shrub, about five or six feet high, often appear to have corymbs of flowers four or six feet in diameter, but these corymbs are produced by several branches.

A very beautiful chamelancium is found on both sides of the road on the border of the sand plain, about half a mile to the south of the Colboun springs ; it grows about two feet high, bearing its flowers in round heads like corymbs ; the flowers are about the size of those of verticordiæ insignis ; they are white when they first come out, becoming rose coloured with age ; the calyx and all the leaves of the plant are strongly ciliated ; I met with a curious little plant of this order, either a species of chamelancium, or a new genus nearly allied thereto; it grows about eighteen inches high, and is a slender shrub with small heart shaped leaves ; the corolla is length-