Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/195

the tall slender lax-flowered usually branched flowering-stems, the upper part of which is male and the lower female; the small broad anthers, on rather long filaments; and the small almost globose drupe. It is probably a widely distributed plant.

3. G. flavida, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xviii. (1886) 260.—Rhizome creeping, slender. Leaves 1½–3 in. long; petiole slender, glabrous or sparingly clothed with shore white hairs; blade ½–1 in. long, ovate or elliptic-ovate or elliptic-oblong, obtuse, cordate or rounded or truncate at the base, finely crenate or sinuate-crenate or almost entire, rather membranous, glabrous or slightly hairy. Spikes unisexual. Males 1–3 in. long, rather slender; flowers lax or close together, on very short unbranched pedicels; each pedicel with a linear bract near the base, and 2 linear-cucullate deciduous bracteoles just under the flower. Sepals 2, small, narrowlinear. Stamens 2; filaments very short, almost wanting; anthers broadly ovate, apiculate. Female peduncles ½–1 in. long in the flowermg stage; flowers crowded. Calyx-teeth 2, short. Styles 2, long. Fruiting peduncles 1–4 in. long, overtopping the leaves. Drupes 1/8 in., spreading, obconic, sessile or shortly pedicelled, red or pale-yellow.—Kirk, Students Fl. 153. G. ovata, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxv. (1893) 274 (in part).

North Island: Upper Waikato and Taupo, T. F. C.; between Taupo and Napier, Hill! Petrie! South Island: Abundant in Otago and Southland, Buchanan! Petrie! Kirk! Hamilton! Sea-level to 3000 ft. December–January.

A comparison of a type specimen from Mr. Colenso with the types of Petrie's G. ovata prove that the two species are identical. In foliage it greatly resembles G. microcarpa, but the slender branched monœcious inflorescence of that species, together with the minute globose drupes, are altogether different from the short unisexual unbranched spikes of G. flavida, with their larger obconic fruit. G. prorepens only differs in the much larger size, and the two may prove to be forms of the one plant.

4. G. prorepens, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 66.—A large and stout species, sometimes 12 in. high, although ordinarily less; rhizomes stout, creeping. Leaves 3–8 in. long; petioles 2–6 in., slender, glabrous or sparingly pilose; blade 1–2 in., ovate or oblong, obtuse, rounded or cordate at the base, crenulate, glabrous or slightly hairy. Flowers not seen. Fruiting peduncles usually longer than the leaves, simple, bearing many sessile lax or densely spiked drupes, which are 1/6 in. long, red, fleshy, obconic or nearly globose, with an irregular deep furrow at the top from whence the styles protrude.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 68 (excl. var. b).

North Island: In subalpine wet localities, Colenso! South Island: West Coast, Lyall.

The only specimens I have seen that I can refer with certainty to this species are two in Mr. Colenso'a herbarium. Mr. N. E. Brown has kindly compared one of them with the type at Kew, and informs me that it exactly corresponds. G. flavida does not seem to differ except in the smaller size of all its parts, and I should not be surprised at the two species proving to be states of one variable plant.