Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822King, Philip Parker
History
Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 2: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822
King, Philip Parker
Australia -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Australia
BIGNONIACEAE. Almost ninety species of this beautiful order are described
by authors, the greater part of which are at present incorporated among
the genuine species of Bignonia of Linne; a genus that will hereafter be
divided, according to the shape of the calyx, the number of fertile
stamina, and more especially the form of the fruit (which in some species
is an orbicular or elliptical capsule, varying in others to a long
cylindrical figure, with seeds partly cuneated, or thickened at one
extremity, and in others, a truly compressed Siliqua) together with the
relative position of the dissepiment, in respect to the valves of the
fruit.
The greater portion of Bignoniaceae appears to exist in the equinoctial
parts of America; Some, however, are natives of India, and a few occur on
the western coast of Africa, and Island of Madagascar, but in Terra
Australis the order is reduced to four plants, of which one is a recent
discovery, and may be referred to Spathodea. In that continent, the order
exists only upon the North and East Coasts; it is not, however, entirely
limited to the tropic, for Tecoma of Mr. Brown is also found in latitude
34 degrees South, on which parallel it has been traced at least three
hundred and fifty miles in the interior to the westward of the colony of
Port Jackson.
ASCLEPIADEAE and APOCINEAE. Nearly the whole of the plants in the
recently formed herbarium, that belong to these natural families, have
been described from specimens formerly discovered upon the East and North
Coasts, several of which appear to give a partial character to the
vegetation of some parts of its shores.
Hoya (hardly Asclepias carnosa of Linne) Cynanchum, Gymnema, Gymnanthus,
Sarcostemma, and probably Secamone, as belonging to Asclepiadeae, and all
the genera of Mr. Brown (Lyonsia excepted) referred to the latter order,
exist on that extensive coast, where Balfouria and Alyxia have each an
accession of species. Of Strychnos, which is also frequent, and probably
produces its flowers during the rainy season (as has been remarked of
this genus in other countries) specimens in that stage of its
fructification are still a desideratum; all that is known respecting the
plant being the form and size of its fruit, which in some species varies
considerably.
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