1. S. angulata, Linn. Sp. Plant. 1013.—Stems trailing or climbing, usually from 2 ft. to 10 ft. long but sometimes much more, glabrous or more or less scabrid. Leaves on long petioles, 2–6 in. diam. or more, ovate-cordate to reniform, palmately 5–7-lobed, the central lobe the longest, membranous, scabrid with short stiff hairs or almost glabrous; tendrils very long, branched. Flowers ⅓ in. diam., greenish; males racemose on a long peduncle; females often from the same axil, capitate on a short peduncle. Fruits clustered, ½ in. long, ovoid, compressed, denselv covered with barbed spines.—Forst. Prodr. n. 363; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 323; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 72; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 82; Benth. Fl. Austral. iii. 322; Kirk, Students' Fl. 183. S. australis, Endl. Prodr. Fl. Norf. 61; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 525.
Kermadec Islands: Abundant, attaining a large size, McGillivray, T.F.C. North Island: In various places on the coast, as far south as Hawke's Bay; more plentiful on the outlying islands than on the mainland. South Island: Queen Charlotte Sound, Banks and Soiander. Mawhai. November–March. Also in North and South America, Australia, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, and Polynesia.
Order XXXII. FICOIDEÆ.
Annual or perennial herbs, rarely undershrubs, of very various habit. Leaves opposite or alternate or whorled, simple, often fleshy, stipules wanting or scarious. Flowers regular, usually hermaphrodite, solitary or fascicled or cymose. Calyx free or adnate to the ovary, 4–5-celled or -partite, imbricate. Petals either narrow and numerous, or 4–5 and small, or altogether wanting. Stamens perigynous or rarely hypogynous, few or many; filaments free or connate at the base. Ovary superior or inferior, 2–5-celled; styles as many as the cells, free or united at the base; ovules either solitary in the cells and basal, or numerous and axile. Fruit generally a capsule with loculicidal or transverse dehiscence, more rarely drupaceous or separating into 1-seeded cocci. Seeds solitary or many, usually compressed; albumen scanty or copious; embryo slender, curved round the albumen, terete.
A large order, comprising 22 genera and nearly 500 species, mostly tropical or sub-tropical, and especially plentiful in South Africa; rare or absent in cold climates. The properties of the order are unimportant. Many species of Mesembryanthemum have showy flowers, and are cultivated in gardens; and Tegragonia is occasionally used as a pot herb. The remaining genera are mostly insignificant weeds. Both the New Zealand genera are widely distributed, although much more numerously represented in South Africa than elsewhere.
1. MESEMBRYANTHEMUM, Linn.
More or less succulent herbs or undershrubs. Leaves usually opposite, thick and fleshy, trigonous or terete or flat. Flowers conspicuous, terminating the branches or axillary. Calyx-tube adnate with the ovary; lobes 5. Petals numerous, linear, in one or several rows. Stamens numerous, in many rows. Ovary inferior,
