With some undescribed species of Boronia, a new genus allied to Eriostemon has been observed on the north-western shores, in the parallel of 15 degrees South, having a remarkable pinnatified fimbriated calyx.
Of the related family ZYGOPHYLLEAE (an order proposed by Mr. Brown to be separated from the Rutaceae of Jussieu) Tribulus is frequent on the tropical shores of New Holland, and a species of Zygophyllum, with linear conjugate leaves and tetrapterous fruit, was remarked upon an island off Shark's Bay, on the West Coast.
MELIACEAE. The several genera of this order, whose maximum is in the equinoctial parts of America, differ from each other in the form of the remarkable cylindrical nectarium, the situation or insertion of the antherae upon it, as well as the character of its almost wholly capsular fruit. This structure of nectarium is most striking in Turraea, of which a species was observed upon the East Coast, far within the tropic; where also, as well as on all the other equinoctial shores of the continent, Carapa, more remarkable on account of the valvular character of its capsules, and the magnitude and irregular figure of its nuts, is very general, and probably not distinct from the plant (C. moluccensis, Lam.) of Rumphius, who has given us a figure in his Herbarium Amboinense volume 3 table 61, 62.
SAPINDACEAE. Of the very few plants referred to the family in the Herbarium, two genera are only worthy of remark here, the one an Ornitrophe, found on the East Coast, in about latitude 35 degrees, as also within the tropic; and the other, which appears to belong to Stadmannia, was discovered upon the same coast, in latitude 31 degrees South, the type of the genus being the bois de fer of the French colonists, a timber tree indigenous at the Island of Mauritius.
MALVACEAE, Juss. Tiliaceae, Juss. Sterculiaceae, Vent. Buttnericeae, Brown. These several families, of which the first is by far the most extensive, have been viewed by Mr. Brown, as so many allied orders of one natural class, to which the general title of Malvaceae might be applied. About thirty-six species of these orders collectively, are preserved in the present Herbarium, referable at least to eleven genera, of which nine are most abundant in (and form a characteristic feature of) the botany of India, and the equinoctial parts of South America. Fourteen species of Hibiscus and Sida were observed on the intratropical Coasts of Australia, beyond which also, on the opposite shores of the continent, each genus has been remarked. One species of Bombax with polyandrous flowers, and subspherical obtusely pentagonal capsules, was discovered upon the East Coast, in about latitude 14 degrees South, and on nearly the western extreme of the same parallel, it appeared much more abundant. Of Sterculia which is scarcely to be found beyond the tropics in other countries, a species exists in New South Wales in the latitude of 34 degrees, on which parallel it is more frequent in the western interior, and in that direction it has been traced to the distance of three hundred miles from the sea-coast. The genus is also found 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 in the Herbarium is a species of Helicteris (as the genus stands at present) which was 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 genus, and constitute a new one of themselves. Grewia, Corchorus, Triumfetta, and Waltheria, have been observed upon the North-west Coast, where also Abroma, hitherto limited to the tropical parts of New South Wales, has been discovered bearing flowers and young fruit. One species of Commersonia was gathered at widely-different parts of the north-western shores, and Lasiopetalum, whose species are more general at both extremes of the parallel of the colony of Port Jackson, has been also seen just within the tropic on the East Coast, and at Dirk Hartog's Island, off Shark's Bay, on the opposite shore.
CAPPARIDES. At least ten species of Capparis have been discovered upon the coasts of Terra Australis, for the most part within the tropic, but of these the fructification of two are wanting. A few have been detected on the East Coast, but they are more frequent and various in their species upon the north-western shores of the continent. Within an area on this extensive coast, not exceeding four degrees of longitude, on the parallel of 15 degrees South, a tree of very remarkable growth and habit, has been traced, having all the external form and bulk of Adansonia of the western shores of Africa. At the respective period of visiting those parts of the North-west Coast, this gouty tree had previously cast its foliage of the preceding year, which is of quinary insertion, but it bore ripe fruit, which is a large elliptical pedicellated unilocalar capsule (a bacca corticosa) containing many seeds enveloped in a dry pithy substance. Its flowers, however, have never been discovered, but from the characters of the fruit, it was (upon discovery) referred to this natural family. M. Du Petit Thouars has formed a new genus of Capparis pauduriformis of Lamarck, a plant of the Island of Mauritius, which he has named Calyptranthus. It has one division of the calyx so formed, that by its arcuated concavity (before expansion) it conceals the whole flower, and the other portions of the calyx; and should this genus be adopted by future botanists, a second species has been recently discovered upon Dirk Hartog's Island, although of remarkably different habit.
Cleome has been observed only in the equinoctial parts of Australia, and like Capparis, several species exist on the North-west Coast, being limited to C. viscosa in New South Wales.
Drosera, which Jussieu associates with these genera is generally diffused, being found within the tropic, at Endeavour River, and on the North-west Coast; at Port Jackson, and at the southern extremes of Van Diemen's Land.
DILLENIACEAE. To that Australian portion of the order lately enumerated by M. Decandolle, the present Herbarium offers, in addition, only two species of the genus Hemistemma of M. Du Petit Thouars. The one discovered on the North-west Coast, and allied to H. angustifolium of Mr. Brown; the other proving also new, but approaching in character the doubtful species, H. leschenaultii of Decandolle, and was discovered upon Rottnest Island, off the western coast of the continent, and is the first certain species of the genus, that is not limited to a tropical existence.