Kermadec Islands: Not uncommon, T.F.C. North Island: Three Kings Islands, T.F.C.; Whangape Harbour, Berggren, McLennan! between Whangarei and Ngunguru, Colenso! Hen and Chickens Islands, Kirk! T.F.C.; Great Barrier Island, Arid Island, Kirk! Little Barrier Island, Cuvier Island, T.F.C.; Cabbage Bay, Adams! East Cape, Bishop Williams! Sea-level to 500 ft. Parapara. Flowers most of the year.
Also found in Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, and Queensland. The fruits are so excessively viscid that small birds, such as the white-eye (Zosterops) and fantail (Rhipidura), are often caught and glued down by the feathers, and fail to free themselves.
Order LXII. ILLECEBRACEÆ.
Annual or perennial often tufted herbs. Leaves opposite or alternate, simple; stipules scarious (wanting in Scleranthus). Flowers usually hermaphrodite, regular, inconspicuous. Perianth (calyx) inferior, herbaceous or coriaceous, persistent and often hardened in fruit; lobes 4–5, imbricate. Petals usually wanting. Stamens hypogynous or perigynous, as many as the perianth-lobes and opposite to them or fewer by abortion, sometimes a single one only; filaments short, subulate; anthers small, didymous. Ovary superior, ovoid, 1-celled; style terminal, 2–3-fid; ovule solitary, erect or pendulous from a basal funicle. Fruit a utricle enclosed in the persistent perianth. Seed with farinaceous albumen; embryo usually annular.
A small order, found in most parts of the world, mainly composed of weedy inconspicuous plants of no economic value. Genera 17; species about 90. The New Zealand genus is found in the temperate regions of both hemispheres.
1. SCLERANTHUS, Linn.
Small rigid usually densely tufted annual or perennial herbs. Leaves opposite, connate at the base, subulate, often serrulate; stipules wanting. Flowers small, green, axillary, solitary or 2 together, or in little cymes or fascicles. Perianth funnel-shaped or urceolate or turbinate, 4–5-toothed or -lobed. Stamens 1, 2, 5, or 10, inserted on the throat of the perianth; filaments subulate; anthers didymous. Ovary ovoid; styles 2, distinct; stigmas eapitellate. Fruit a membranous utricle enclosed in the persistent and hardened perianth. Seed lenticular; testa smooth; embryo annular.
Species about 12, scattered through Europe, temperate and subtropical Asia, Africa, and Australasia. The single New Zealand species is also found in Australia.
1. S. biflorus, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 74.—A small densely branched glabrous or minutely pubescent perennial herb, usually forming compact cushions 1–4 in. diam. or more, rarely laxly branched with the stems creeping and elongating to 6 in. Leaves crowded and imbricating, rarely remote, 110–112 in. long, narrow-
