slightly longer than them, 2–5-flowered. Petals obovate-spathulate, almost twice as long as the sepals. Pods on short stout pedicels, 15–13 in. long, laterally compressed; valves keeled, not winged. Seeds 3–5 in each cell, obovoid, red-brown.—Ic. Plant. t. 1009; Buch. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) t. 24, f. 1; Kirk, Students Fl. 32. Braya novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 13.
South Island: Otago—Mount Alta, Hector and Buchanan! Mount St. Bathan's, Mount Pisa, Mount Kyeburn, Mount Cardrona, &c., Petrie! 4500–6500 ft.
A very singular plant. Mr. Buchanan's P. glabra (Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. t. 24, f. 2) is a form with rather larger and almost glabrous leaves, with sharply pointed ascending lobes. It passes insensibly into the ordinary state.
3. CAPSELLA, Medicus.
Annual or rarely perennial branched herbs, of small size and weak habit, glabrous or pilose. Radical leaves entire or pinnatifid. Flowers small, white, racemed. Sepals spreading, equal at the base. Petals short. Pods oblong, ovoid, or obcordate, laterally compressed; valves convex or boat-shaped; septum thin; style short. Seeds numerous, in 2 rows. Cotyledons incumbent.
A small genus, scattered over the temperate regions of both hemispheres.
1. C. procumbens, Fries Novit. Fl. Suec. Mant. i. 14.—Slender, perfectly glabrous. Stems numerous from the root, 2–6 in. long, decumbent at the base, ascending at the tips. Leaves ¼–¾ in. long; lower ovate, oblong, or spathulate, entire or lobed or irregularly pinnatifid, petioled; upper smaller, more sessile, often entire. Flowers white, very small. Racemes elongating in fruit; pedicels filiform, spreading. Pod ovoid, 16–15 in. long; valves boat-shaped. Seeds 10–15 in each cell. Benth. Fl. Austral, i. 81. C. elliptica, C. A. Mey. in Ledeb. Fl. Alt. iii. 199; Kirk, Students Fl. 33.
South Island: Otago—On cliffs exposed to sea-spray: Oamaru; Waikouaiti; near Dunedin; Petrie! September–October.
A widely distributed plant, found in Europe, western and central Asia, north-west and South America, and Australia.
C. bursa-pastoris, Mœnch, the common "Shepherd's Purse," is now established as a weed in most parts of the colony. It is an erect annual, with spreading pinnatifid radical leaves and triangular cuneate or obcordate pods, arranged in a long lax raceme.
6. LEPIDIUM, Linn.
Erect or spreading, glabrous or pubescent, annual or perennial herbs, sometimes almost shrubby. Leaves entire or divided. Flowers small, white, ebracteate. Sepals short, equal at the base. Petals short, equal, sometimes wanting. Stamens often reduced to 4 or 2. Pods variable, oblong, ovate, obcordate, or orbicular, much
