7. CRANTZIA, Nutt.
A small creeping herb. Leaves linear, terete or compressed, undivided, transversely septate. Umbels simple, with minute involucral bracts. Flowers minute. Calyx-teeth small. Petals concave, acute, imbricate in the bud. Fruit ovoid-globose, slightly flattened laterally. Carpels nearly terete, with 5 ribs separated by furrows, the lateral ribs forming a thick and corky mass near the commissure. Vittae 1 under each furrow and 2 at the commissure.
A monotypic genus, found in the United States and Mexico, extra-tropical and Andine South America, Australia and Tasmania, and New Zealand.
1. C. lineata, Nutt. Gen. N. Amer. Pl. i. 177.—Perfectly glabrous. Rhizome slender, creeping and rooting at the nodes, 2–6 in. long or more. Leaves usually tufted at the nodes, variable in size, ½–4 in. long, narrow-linear, fistulose, terete or sub-compressed, obtuse at the tip, transversely septate internally. Peduncles axillary, shorter than the leaves, filiform, bearing a single 2–8-flowered umbel. Flowers white. Fruit 112 in. long.—Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. ii. 287, t. 100; Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 87; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 89; Benth. Fl. Austral, iii. 374; Kirk, Students' Fl. 199.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abundant in wet places from the North Cape southwards. Sea-level to 2500 ft. November–February.
A very variable little plant. When completely submerged the leaves are fistulose and terete, softer in texture, and usually much larger; but when growing in places that are dry for a considerable part of the year the leaves are often much compressed and minute.
8. ACIPHYLLA, Forst.
Erect and rigid usually spinescent glabrous perennials, often of large size. Leaves thick and coriaceous, pinnate or 2–3-pinnate, the rhachis transversely jointed at the insertion of the leaflets, leaf-segments usually ending in stout rigid spines. Umbels compound, in the axils of spinescent floral leaves or bracts, usually forming a more or less dense paniculate or spicate inflorescence; male umbels much more lax than the females. Flowers unisexual, usually diœcious. Calyx-teeth small or obsolete. Petals incurved, rarely with an inflexed tip. Stylopodia depressed in the male flowers, erect and conical in the female. Fruit oblong or linear-oblong; carpels with narrowly winged ridges, usually one 5-winged and the other 4- winged, or both 5-winged or 4- winged, or not rarely one carpel is 3- winged and the other 4- winged. Vittæ 1–3 under each furrow and 2–5 on the commissural face.
A genus confined to New Zealand, with the exception of 2 species found in the Australian Alps. It is mainly characterized by its remarkably distinct habit and spinescent leaves and bracts, the flowers and fruit being very similar to those of Ligusticum. Two of the species—A. Colensoi and A. squarrosa—often form almost impenetrable thickets in subalpine districts.
