A genus comprising about 60 species, found in the temperate and subtropical regions of the Old World, but not extending to America or South Africa. It only differs from Galium in the funnel-shaped corolla. The single New Zealand species is endemic.
1. A. perpusilla, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 114.—A small slender decumbent perennial. Stems weak, filiform, branched, 1–3 in. high, glabrous. Leaves in whorls of 4, 115–110 in. long, lanceolate, acuminate, awned, straight or curved, margins usually ciliate. Flowers minute, white, axillary or terminal, solitary, often unisexual; males usually pedicelled; females sessile. Calyx-tube glabrous. Corolla 112 in. diam., campanulate, 4- or rarely 5-partite, tube very short. Styles united below, their tips free, divergent. Fruit of 2 globose minutely granulate cocci.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 121; Kirk, Students' Fl. 248. A. aristifera, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxi. (1889) 88.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island: Not uncommon from the Lower Waikato southwards, ascending to 3000 ft. November–January.
The corolla-tube is much shorter than is usual in Asperula, and the species would almost be better placed in Galium.
A. fragrantissima, Armst. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) 359, is probably a form of Galium umbrosum.
Order XXXVIII. COMPOSITÆ.
Herbs, shrubs, or small trees. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite or whorled; stipules wanting. Inflorescence composed of one or many flower-heads (capitula), each consisting of numerous minute flowers (florets) sessile and densely packed on the enlarged tip of the flower-stalk (receptacle), surrounded by an involucre of whorled bracts and resembling a single flower. Heads either solitary and terminal (rarely axillary) or arranged in corymbose cymes or panicles, sometimes contracted into clusters or even compound heads. Involucre of few or many bracts (scales of the involucre) arranged m one or several rows. Receptacle either naked (no bracteoles mixed with the florets) or with bracteoles in the shape of chaffy scales or bristles (paleæ) placed at the outside of most or all of the florets, sometimes with the surface pitted or honeycombed. Florets many or few (very rarely 1), either all of one kind as regards sex, when the heads are said to be homogamous, or of more than one kind, when they are called heterogamous. The homogamous heads either have all their florets tubular and hermaphrodite (discoid) or all ligulate and hermaphrodite (liguliflorous). The heterogamous heads frequently have the central florets tubular and hermaphrodite or male, and the outer ones ligulate and female or neuter. The heads are then said to be radiate. The tubular florets in the centre are called florets of the disc, or simply disc-florets; the ligulate ones florets of the ray, or ray-florets. Heterogamous
