Chenopodiastrum auricomum, Lindl

George Bentham & Ferdinand Mueller, 1870, Chenopodium & Dysphania, Flora Australiensis, London: L. Reeve & Co., pp. 157-165 : -1

2. C. auricomum, Lindl . in Mitch. Trop. Austr. 94.

Erect and probably tall, more or less white or hoary all over, apparently herbaceous and not spinescent. Leaves on rather long petioles, ovate or oblong, very obtuse, entire or rarely hastate with prominent basal lobes, mostly ¾ to l ½ in. long. Flowers in little dense globular clusters along the branches of a terminal panicle, sometimes distinct and rather distant, sometimes crowded into dense spikes. Perianth-segments broad, concave, closing over the fruit. Stamens 5, shortly exserted. Ovary small, globular, contracted into a long neck or united base of the styles. Pericarp depressed-globose, membranous. Seed very flat, horizontal. Embryo annular. - Moq. in DC. Prod. xiii. ii. 460. N. Australia. Upper Victoria river and Sturt's Creek , F. Mueller ; Gulf of Carpentaria , Landsborough ; in the interior , M'Douall Stuart's Expedition .

Queensland. Narran river , Mitchell; Curriwinigbie , Dalton; Suttor and Bowen rivers , Bowman.

N. S. Wales. Darling river and Duroodoo, Victorian Expedition.

This species undoubtedly comes near to some forms of C. album, differing in its entire more tomentose leaves and larger flowers. It appears to be still more closely allied to and perhaps not really distinct from the East Asiatic C. acuminatum, Willd .

C. furfuraceum, Moq . in DC. Prod. xiii. ii. 64, from the Straits of Entrecasteaux, Tasmania, is unknown to me. The character given agrees with that of C. auricomum , of which however I have seen no specimen from Tasmania, nor from the south coast of the continent of Australia.