Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/194

sepals, and with 1 or 2 ciliate bracts at the base of the pedicel. Females crowded at the base of the panicle. Calyx-lobes 2, linear, acute. Styles 2, very long. Fruit minute, 1/10 in. diam., globose or broadly ovoid, fleshy or coriaceous, red or white.—Raoul, Choix, t. 8; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 65; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 67; Kirk, Students' Fl. 152.

Var. strigosa, Kirk, l.c.—More or less clothed with copious strigose hairs, sometimes almost hoary.—G. strigosa, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xv. (1883) 322. Hardly deserves varietal rank.

Var. ramulosa, Kirk, l.c.—Branches stout, much branched, clothed with the bases of the old leaves. Panicles much divided; branches often long. Flowers crowded. Fruit not known.

Var. albocarpa, Kirk, l.c.—Larger and stouter; rhizome sometimes as thick as a goose-quill. Leaves larger, sometimes 1½ in. diam. Panicles 3–6 in., much branched; branches long. Fruit globose, white, tipped with the black calyx lobes.

North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abundant in moist places from Mongonui southwards. Sea-level to 3500 ft. November–January.

The chief distinguishing characters of this species are the broad reniform or orbicular-cordate leaves, very slender bisexual panicles, and minute globose drupe. But specimens possessing these characters differ from one another considerably in size, cutting of the leaves, size of the panicle and extent to which it is divided, and the size and colour of the fruit; and I suspect that a careful study of these forms in the field will result in the species being split up into two or more.

2. G. microcarpa, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii. (1895) 348.—Rhizomes slender, creeping. Leaves tufted, 2–4 in. long; petiole slender, hairy or strigose; blade about 1 in. long, broadly ovate or ovate-cordate, obtuse, crenate or crenate-lobed, both surfaces with scattered white hairs. Peduncles very slender, exceeding the leaves, 1–5 in. long, usually much branched below, rarely simple; upper two-thirds or more male, lower one-third female. Male flowers sessile on the branches or very shortly pedicelled, each with 2 narrow concave deciduous bracts. Sepals 2, minute, linear. Stamens 2; filaments often as long as the small broadly oblong obtuse anthers. Female flowers: Calyx-lobes 2, minute. Styles very long and slender, filiform. Persistent fruiting portion of the peduncle shorter than the leaves, often mclined. Drupes small, sessile, ovoid-globose, red or yellow, about 1/10 in. long.—Students' Fl. 153. G. mixta, Kirk, Students' Fl. 152. G. ovata, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxv. (1893) 274 (in part).

South Island: Otago and Southland, not uncommon, T. Waugh! Petrie! B. C. Aston! December–January. Mr. Kirk's type specimens of G. microcarpa are in fruit only, and are few in number and otherwise imperfect. His G. mixta is based upon flowering specimens, to which the tall slender inflorescence gives a somewhat distinct appearance, although the leaves are identical. But the fine series of specimens in all stages of flower and fruit preserved in Mr. Petrie's herbarium prove beyond doubt that both are one and the same species. Its distinguishing characters are