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.