1. A. pusilla, Gaud. in Freyc. Voy. Bot. 505.—Stems very slender, creeping and rooting, much and often intricately branched, 3–12 in. long, more or less pubescent. Leaves ⅙–½ in. long, broadly ovate or orbicular or broader than long, rounded at the tip, cuneate or almost truncate at the base, obtusely crenate, thin and membranous, pubescent on both surfaces; petiole as long or longer than the blade. Male flowers 2–3 together or solitaiy; peduncle variable in length, sometimes exceeding the petiole. Perianth irregularly bilabiate, green, membranous, hispid. Stamen large, exserted. Female flowers solitary or 2–3 together, each on a very short peduncle or sessile, in the same or in a different axil to the male inflorescence. Perianth very minute, flask-shaped, 2–3-toothed at the constricted mouth. Style exserted, villous.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 252; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi. 189. A. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 226. A. hispidula, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xviii. (1886) 266.
North and South Islands: Dark shaded woods from Hokianga and the Bay of Islands to Foveaux Strait, but often very local. Sea-level to 1000 ft.
Order LXXVII. CUPULIFERÆ.
Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, penninerved, entire or toothed or lobed, never compound; stipules present, free, often caducous. Flowers usually monoecious. Males in erect or pendulous spikes (catkins) sometimes shortened into globular or capitate clusters. Perianth of 1–5 free or connate segments or wanting. Stamens 2–20, inserted on a torus or at the base of the perianth-segments; filaments slender; anthers 2-celled. Female flowers less numerous than the males, solitary or in few-flowered catkins or clusters, often surrounded by scales or bracts which are frequently united into an entire or lobed involucre. Perianth adnate to the ovary or wanting, limb minute, annular or toothed. Ovary inferior, 2–6-celled; styles as many as the cells, stigmatic in the upper part; ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit a nut, enclosed or seated within the persistent and hardened enlarged involucre. Seed usually solitary in each nut; albumen wanting; embryo with large and fleshy cotyledons, radicle superior.
An important order, including 10 genera and about 400 species, for the most part confined to the Northern Hemisphere, and most abundant in the temperate zone, extending southwards to the mountains of the Malay Archipelago and Central America and Colombia, a very few species of one genus alone found in the south temperate zone. The order includes the oak, chestnut, beech, hazel, hornbeam, birch, &c., and produces some of the most durable and valuable woods known. The single New Zealand genus occurs in the temperate regions of both hemispheres.
