limb 4–5-toothed or -lobed or almost truncate, often absent in the males. Corolla funnel-shaped or campanulate, 4–5-lobed or -partite; lobes valvate in the bud. Stamens usually 4 or 5, inserted at the base of the corolla-tube; filaments long, filiform; anthers exserted, pendulous. Ovary 2-celled, rarely 3- or 4-celled; styles the same number as the cells, free to the base, filiform, far-exserted, papillose-hirsute; ovules solitary in each cell. Fruit a fleshy oblong or ovoid or globose drupe, with 2 (rarely 4) 1-seeded plano-convex pyrenes.
A genus of about 60 species, having its headquarters in New Zealand; found also in Australia and Tasmania and northwards to New Guinea and Borneo; also stretching through Polynesia as far as the Sandwich Islands and Juan Fernandez. In New Zealand it everywhere forms a large proportion of the shrubby vegetation, and is equally plentiful in lowland forests or subalpine woods, often forming dense and sometimes almost impenetrable thickets. One species ascends the mountains to a height of 6000 ft., and reaches as far south as Macquarie Island, where it is the sole ligneous plant. The species are extremely variable in habit, foliage, and vegetative characters generally; and, as the flowers are small and inconspicuous and very uniform in structure throughout the genus, it is no easy matter to obtain good distinctive characters, even when dealing with fresh specimens. In the following account I have adhered to the plan adopted in my monograph of the New Zealand species, published in the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute" (Vol. xix., pp. 218 to 252), to which reference should be made for many details which cannot be given here.
In attempting to determine the species of Coprosma really good and well-selected specimens showing both foliage and flowers are indispensable. Both sexes should be collected; and, as important characters are often afiorded by the fruit, it should be obtained also, if possible from the same plant from which the female flowers were taken, notes being preserved of the shape, size, colour, and other characters lost in drying. Notes should also be kept of the habit and mode of growth, some of the closely allied species being easily distinguished by that alone. As the characters on which the species are founded are to a great extent comparative, the student must not expect to make much progress until he has collected a considerable number of the species and carefully compared one with another. The small-leaved species included in section B are particularly difficult to identify until most of them have been studied in detail.
In many of the small-leaved species the flowers are closely invested by one or more series of connate bracts, each series being composed of a pair of minute depauperated leaves and their stipules. The upper series usually forms an unequally 4-toothed cup-shaped involucel, and is easily mistaken for a calyx, especially in the male flowers, where the true calyx is often entirely wanting.
It is perhaps necessary to state that, with one or two exceptions, I have examined authentic specimens in Mr. Colenso's herbarium of the 16 species described by him in various volumes of the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." They are for the most part absolutely identical with previously described species, and the remainder differ so very slightly that they cannot be separated even as varieties.
| A. Erect shrubs or trees. Leaves large, over 1 in. in length. Flowers fascicled on lateral peduncles; fascicles usually many-flowered. | |
| * Peduncles 1–3 in. long (short in C. macrocarpa), trichotomously divided; fascicles dense. | |
| Leaves 3–7 in. long, coriaceous. Peduncles 1–1½ in. Fruit very large, ½–¾ in. long | 1. C. macrocarpa. |
| Leaves 4–9 in., membranous. Peduncles 1–3 in. Fruit ⅓ in. | 2. C. grandifolia. |
| Leaves 2–5 in., coriaceous. Peduncles 1–2 in. Fruit ⅓ in. | 3. C. lucida. |
