the top; stigma terminal or lateral; ovules solitary or geminate or many. Fruit either an indehiscent nut or drupe, or a dehiscent coriaceous or woody follicle, more rarely a 2-valved capsule. Seeds exalbuminous; embryo straight, with fleshy cotyledons, radicle inferior.
A large and well-marked order, chiefly found in Australia and South Africa, but extending to the Pacific islands and tropical Asia on the one side and South America on the other; absent in Europe, North Asia, and North America. Genera about 50; species estimated at 950. Several species are cultivated for ornamental purposes, but few possess any useful properties. Of the two indigenous genera, Knightia has 2 species in New Caledonia, while Persoonia is largely developed in Australia. The meagre representation of the order in New Zealand, compared with its abundance in Australia, is a very curious and almost inexplicable feature of the flora.
| Small spreading tree. Leaves entire. Fruit fleshy | 1. Persoonia. |
| Tall fastigiate tree. Leaves serrate. Fruit a woody follicle | 2. Knightia. |
1. PERSOONIA, Smith.
Shrubs or small trees. Leaves entire, alternate or sometimes almost whorled. Flowers small, hermaphrodite, yellowish or white, solitary and axillary, or in axillary or terminal racei^ies. Perianth regular, constricted above the base or cylindrical; segments ultimately separating to the base or nearly so, upper portion revolute. Stamens affixed at or below the middle of the perianth-segments; filaments short; anthers usually all perfect, oblong or linear. Hypogynous scales 4, small. Ovary stipitate; style short and thick, or elongated and filiform; stigma terminal; ovules 2 or rarely 1, orthotropous, pendulous from the top of the cell. Fruit a drupe, either 1-celled and 1-seeded, or obliquely 2-celled and 2-seeded; exocarp more or less succulent; endocarp thick and hard.
Species about 60, all confined to Australia except the present one, which is endemic in the North Island of New Zealand.
1. P. Toru, A. Cunn. in Bot. Mag. sub t. 3513.—A handsome closely branched tree 15 to 30 or 40 ft. high; trunk 6–18 in. diam.; branchlets woody, terete, glabrous or the younger ones minutely puberulous. Leaves alternate, 4–8 in. long, narrow linear-lanceolate, acute or apiculate or rarely obtuse, gradually narrowed into a short petiole, quite entire, very thick and coriaceous, glabrous, smooth and polished on both surfaces, veins very obscure. Racemes axillary, strict, erect, 6–12-flowered, everywhere clothed with ferruginous pubescence. Perianth yellowish-brown, shortly pedicelled, ¼–⅓ in. long, pubescent externally. Ovary almost sessile, glabrous; style short, thick, not reaching the anthers; stigma oblique. Drupe oblong, reddish, ½–⅔ in. long, 1- or 2-celled, with a single seed in each cell.—P. Tora, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 349; Raoul, Choix, 42. P. Toro, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 219; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 241; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 74.
