tary or geminate spikes. Male flowers: Numerous, usually closely placed. Perianth small, 4-partite; segments broad, obtuse, concave, imbricate. Stamens 4; filaments inflexed in bud; anthers didymous, 2-celled. Rudimentary ovary turbinate. Female flowers: Few and lax, or numerous and dense. Perianth very small, 4-partite; segments unequal, closely imbricate. Ovary straight, sessile, exserted, 1-celled; style deeply 2-partite; ovule solitary, pendulous. Fruit drupaceous, seated on the slightly enlarged persistent perianth, globose or ovoid, tipped by the short style; exocarp thin, fleshy; endocarp crustaceous. Seed subglobose; albumen scanty; cotyledons broad, foliaceous, conduplicate.
A small genus of 6 species, 3 of which are found in New Zealand, 2 in the Pacific islands, and 1 in the Philippines.
| Leaves ⅓–1½ in. Female spikes ¼–½ in., 3–8-flowered. Drupes 1–3 ripening on each spike, ⅙ in. diam. | 1. P. heterophylla. |
| Leaves 1½–3½ in. Female spikes ½–1 in., 8–25-flowered. Drupes usually many ripening on each spike, ¼ in. diam. | 2. P. Banksii. |
| Leaves 4–8 in., entire. Female spikes 2–4 in., many-flowered; flowers in 2 rows on each side of the rhachis. Drupe ⅓ in. diam. | 3. P. Smithii. |
1. P. heterophylla, Bl. Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. ii. 81.—A tree 15–40 ft. high, with a trunk 9–24 in. diam.; bark grey or almost white, rough with raised lenticels; branches numerous, crowded, glabrous or pubescent; those of young plants long and slender, flexuous, often interlaced, pubescent or setose at the tips, bark dark-brown. Leaves of young plants remote, ⅓–¾ in. long, broadly obovate to oblong-obovate, acute or obtuse, cuneate at the base, rather membranous, glabrous or pubescent, serrate, often irregularly lobed or almost pinnatifid; of mature trees ⅓–1½ in. long, oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate to elliptic, obtuse or acute, crenate or crenate-dentate, coriaceous, dark-green, prominently reticulate. Male spikes ⅓–1 in. long, shortly pedunculate, cylindric. Flowers closely packed, minute, sessile, intermixed with peltate scales. Perianth-segments rounded, margins ciliate. Stamens exserted. Female spikes ¼–½ in. long, 3–8-flowered. Flowers lax, very minute, intermixed with peltate scales. Perianth-segments appressed to the ovary, the 2 outer rather smaller. Drupe globose, small, red, ⅙ in. diam., usually 1 and seldom as many as 3 ripening on each spike.—Epicarpurus microphyllus, Raoul, Choix, 14, t. 9; Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 251. Taxotrophis microphylla, F. Muell. Fragm. Phyt. Austr. vi. 193. Trophis opaca, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 224 (in part).
North and South Islands: Not uncommon in lowland forests throughout. Turepo; Milk-tree. October–February.
Abounding in milky sap, which is said to be palatable. The wood is dense and heavy, but not durable. The spikes are often diseased, and converted into large much-branched panicles densely clothed with small imbricating bracts, the flowers being altogether aborted.
