ginibus integris, varie lobatis vel fimbriatis, raro in acetabulum dilatatum. Bacca sphærica, valde depressa, pallide cærulea, 2–3 lin. diametro, breviter pedunculata; epicarpio tenui, membranaceo; sarcocarpio spongioso, insipido, albido; putamine ovato-globoso, crustaceo, extus venoso, venis basi ad apicem radiantibus. Semen unicum, majusculum, reliquiis exsiccatis tenuiter membranaceis brunneis placentæ circumdatum, sphæricum, latere unico medio valde constrictum; testa membranacea, tenui, prope hilum subplicata, pallide fusca; albumine duro, corneo, albido. Embryo teres, filiformis, axi seminis contrarius, oblique transversus; radicula elongata; cotyledonibus parvis, semiteretibus.
This is not an uncommon plant in the woods at the sources of rivers which fall into the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and it has also been gathered in other parts of the Northern Island of New Zealand, where it assumes a more straggling and less woody appearance than the Auckland Island specimens present. It is the only shrub which in this longitude inhabits a level so nearly that of the ocean in the respective latitudes of 35° and 52½° S. Mr. Cunningham, who first detected this species, describes the berries as spotted with black; in the southern specimens, which may in this respect be a variety, they are of a uniform pale blue, and quite unmarked.
I have ventured to retain M. A. Richard's generic name of Suttonia for this and several other Myrsineæ of New Zealand, and though that author gives no etymology of the name, I cannot but suppose it was adopted as a well-merited compliment to the Rev. Dr. Sutton of Norwich, one of the original members of the Linnæan Society of London, and author of an excellent paper on the British species of Orobanche, read before that Society in 1797 (vide Linn. Soc. Trans, vol. iv. p. 193).
The other species which will be included under Suttonia, as above characterized, are (1.) S. australis, A. Rich. (Myrsine Urvillei, Alph. DeC.; Myrsine undulata, A. Cunn.; Merista lævigata, Banks and Sol. MSS.); (2.) S. tenuifolia[1], n. sp.; (3.) S. salicina (Myrsine salicina, Hew. MSS.). All these have the petals free, except the last, in which they are slightly adherent at the base, and they further differ from Myrsine in having solitary or rarely (in M. salicina alone) two ovules and seeds. The original discoverers of the genus were Sir J. Banks and Dr. Solander, who, accompanying Captain Cook during a five-months' investigation of various parts of the shores of New Zealand, were the first Europeans that ever landed there, and the indefatigable collectors of most of the singular and new forms of plants with which those islands abound. The name Merista, given by them to one of the species, was probably adopted in allusion to the division of the corolla. The drawing and description of M. Richard were made from very imperfect specimens, and the genus incorrectly referred to Terebinthace.
The Myrsineæ are for the most part inhabitants of climates whose temperature is equable, and they particularly abound in insular localities, as the islands of the Indian Ocean, Mauritius, Bourbon, and Madagascar. Their utmost northern limit in the old world seems to be the Azores, lat. 39° N., Madeira, lat. 32°, and Teneriffe; but in no part of the adjacent continent of Africa do they cross the northern tropic; in Europe they are entirely wanting, and in Asia extend only to Japan, in north latitude 40°. The order is very rare in North America, and especially to the northward of Mexico, only one species inhabiting the United States, the M. Floridana, A. DeC., and that is confined to the southern state whose name it bears, lat. 30° N. In the southern hemisphere they nowhere (except in New Zealand) are found to the southward of the 36th parallel, and there in S. Brazil only. In Africa they reach the 33rd, and the 34th in Australia. Their extension into the 53rd degree in the
- ↑ Suttonia tenuifolia, n. sp.; arbuscula, foliis petiolatis ovatis vel ovalibus obtusis tenuibus submembranaceis integerrimis reticulatim venosis punctis glandulosis parvis, fructibus globosis solitariis v. binis pedicellatis.
Hab. Norfolk Island, on the skirts of woods: A. Cunningham (in Herb. Hook.).
A larger and more membranous-leaved species than the S. australis, to which it is nearly allied.
