stinging hairs few, weak. Spikes or racemes single or geminate in the axils of the upper leaves, often branched, longer or shorter than the petioles, the lower male and the upper female, or inflorescence altogether dioecious. Male perianth 115 in. diam., glabrous or nearly so; female perianth much smaller when in flower but enlarging as the fruit ripens. Nut ovoid, compressed, rather longer than the persistent slightly enlarged perianth.—Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 251; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi. 190. U. lucifuga, Hook. f. in. Hook. Lond. Journ. Bot. vi. (1847) 285; Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 225.
Var. linearifolia, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 225.—Leaves very narrow-linear, 1–3½ in. long, ⅛–½ in. wide. Spikes shorter, sometimes reduced to axillary glomerules.
North and South Islands: Not uncommon in shaded places, from the North Cape to Foveaux Strait. Sea-level to 4000 ft. Flowers spring and summer.
Also common in Australia and Tasmania, and very near to the northern U. dioica (which is sparingly naturalised in New Zealand), principally differing in the more slender habit, in not being conspicuously pubescent between the stinging hairs, and in the usually shorter spikes.
3. ELATOSTEMA, Forst.
Herbs, sometimes woody at the base. Leaves distichous, alternate, or if opposite one of each pair much smaller than the other, sessile or nearly so, oblique and unequal-sided; stipules lateral or intrapetiolar. Flowers very minute, densely crowded in axillary sessile or peduncled unisexual usually involucrate receptacles; involucral bracts broadly oblong or ovate, nearly free or confluent below. Male flowers: Perianth 4–5-partite; segments membranous or hyaline, often spurred or tubercled on the back. Stamens 4–5, inflexed in bud. Eudimentary ovary minute. Female flowers: Perianth of 3–5 very minute segments or altogether wanting. Stamens imperfect. Ovary straight; stigma sessile, penicillate; ovule erect. Achene minute, compressed, ovoid or ellipsoid, smooth or rarely ribbed. Seed erect; albumen usually wanting; cotyledons ovate.
About 50 species are known, for the most part natives of tropical Asia and Africa, but the genus extends northwards to Japan, and southwards to New Zealand.
1. E. rugosum, Author:Allan Cunningham (1791-1839)A. Cunn. Precur. n. 335.—Stems stout, succulent, decumbent or prostrate and rooting at the base, erect above, sparingly branched, 1–5 ft. high. Leaves alternate, 4–10 in. long, obovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, acuminate, curved, unequal-sided, auricled and semi-amplexicaul at the sessile base, sharply serrate, membranous, rugose, pubescent with minute rigid hairs on both surfaces; stipules lanceolate, membranous, deciduous. Receptacles monœcious, solitary in the axils of the leaves, sessile or shortly pedunculate, depressed-hemispherical, often lobed, ¼–½ in.
