the leaves, usually bearing a single terminal 2–3-flowered umbel with 1 or 2 3-lobed leaves below it, but often a secondary umbel is developed from the base of the primary one; involucral leaves linear, acute. Fruits minute, 115 in. long, obtusely tetragonous, rather turgid, about equalling the pedicels; capsules obscurely 5-ribbed.—Kirk, Students Fl. 193.
South Island: Nelson—Lake Guyon, Kirk! Canterbury—Broken River basin, Enys! Kirk! T.F.C. Otago—Lake Te Anau and Clinton Valley, Petrie. 700–3000 ft. December–January.
A very distinct little plant, in habit somewhat agreeing with small forms of Hydrocotyle tripartita.
9. A. trifoliolata, Benth. and Hook. f. l.c.—Very slender, with much of the habit and appearance of a Hydrocotyle. Stems filiform, branched, creeping and rooting at the nodes, 2–12 in. long. Leaves 2–6 at each node, membranous, glabrous or with a few scattered hairs, 3-foliolate; leaflets 15–12 in. long, shortly stalked or sessile, obovate-cuneate to flabellate, irregularly 2–6-lobed or -toothed; lobes obtuse or apiculate; petioles slender, 1–4 in. long; stipules small, ciliate. Peduncles much shorter than the leaves, usually 2–3 springing from the same point. Umbels 2–8-flowered; involucral bracts subulate, ciliate or laciniate. Fruits obtusely tetragonous, longer than their pedicels; carpels rounded at the back, 5-ribbed.—Kirk, Students Fl. 193. Pozoa trifoliolata, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 85, t. 18; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 88. P. microdonta. Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii. (1891) 387.
North and South Islands: Not uncommon from Hawke's Bay and Taranaki southwards. Sea-level to 2500 ft. November–February.
3. ERYNGIUM, Linn.
Perennial herbs. Leaves usually rigid and coriaceous, spinous-toothed. entire lobed or dissected. Flowers sessile in dense heads, with a bracteole under each flower, and a whorl of rigid often spinous-pointed bracts at the base of the head. Calyx-tube clothed with hyaline scales; teeth rigid, acute. Petals narrow, erect, deeply notched, with a long inflected point. Fruit ovoid or obovoid, scarcely compressed, covered with hyaline scales or tubercles; carpels semi-terete, primary ridges obscure, secondarv wanting; vittæ inconspicuous or absent.
A large genus of over 150 species, spread through most temperate and subtropical regions, but most plentiful in South America and western Asia. The single species found in New Zealand extends to Australia as well.
1. E. vesiculosum, Lab. Nov. Holl. Pl. i. 73, t. 98.—A harsh and rigid spinous herb 2–9 in. high, with tufted radical leaves and prostrate stems much resembling stolons but not rooting. Radical leaves crowded, rosulate, 3–6 in. long, lanceolate or oblanceolate or spathulate-lanceolate, deeply toothed or almost pinnatifid, the teeth
