. The naturalist in Australia. Natural history. 278 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. subject for the top illustration in Plate XLIX. The species is apparently identical with the Northern Fruit-eating Bat, Pteropus conspicillatus. What would at first sight appear to be a floral product closely resembling a rose or camelia in size, shape, and structure, is depicted in the accompanying illustration. It is as a matter of fact no flower at all, but a vagary of vegetation induced through the interference of a gall-insect, the plant thus distinguished being the ordinary White Mangrove, Avicennia officina
. The naturalist in Australia. Natural history. 278 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. subject for the top illustration in Plate XLIX. The species is apparently identical with the Northern Fruit-eating Bat, Pteropus conspicillatus. What would at first sight appear to be a floral product closely resembling a rose or camelia in size, shape, and structure, is depicted in the accompanying illustration. It is as a matter of fact no flower at all, but a vagary of vegetation induced through the interference of a gall-insect, the plant thus distinguished being the ordinary White Mangrove, Avicennia officinalis. Several of the bushes in the vicinity of the one from which the examples figured were taken, were literally laden with these rosette-shaped galls, one small spray gathered (which was also photographed) bearing as many as twenty of these singular products. The colour of these "gall flowers" approximated to that of the leaves of the tree that bore them. From an aesthetic point of view, they were undoubtedly as worthy of admiration as the green roses which are assiduously cultivated and held in high repute in the gardens of rose specialists. Contemplating these Mangrove " roses" in conjunction with the verdant variety of Rosa hortensis that happens to be flourishing in the writer's garden and thus available for comparison while penning these lines, the mind is exercised with the thought as to whether gall-insects have not had something to do with the origin of some of our most highly prized horticultural. EOSETTE GALLS OF WHITE MANGROTE. triumphs. If, in fact, the green rose is the archetype of the exquisite blooms that through high cultiva- tion and under another colour smell so sweet, have we not in this mangrove gall created straightaway the prototype of a floral gem that simply needs bleaching and the addition of a drop of scent to produce a buttonhole camelia that Avould satisfy the most fastidious. There is yet another noteworthy point con- cerning t
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