Art. XXX.—Botanical Notes.
By J. Buchanan, F.L.S.
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 18th February, 1888.]
Plates XII. and XIII.
Melicope parvula, n. s.
A small glabrous shrub, 5–6 feet high. Branches very slender. Leaves opposite, in distant pairs, ⅕ inch long, obovate, and obscurely cremate; peduncles 1⁄10th inch long. Flowers in minute clusters, in the axils of the leaves.
This is a distinct though diminutive species of the genus Melicope, and its having been found growing along with the larger species of that geuus points to the probability of this new plant being the natural result of the altered conditions of one seed, and not through a long derivative process of ancestry.
The species of Melicope in New Zealand are remarkable as presenting a gradually diminishing size, from the largest-leaved species, M. ternata, to the present minute species, M. parvula, which barely leaves room for one smaller. Near Dunedin.
Ranunculus tenuis, n. s. Plate XII.
A tall, slender, glabrous plant, 10–12 inches high. Root-stalk ¼-inch diameter. Leaves all radical, ovate-oblong in outline, tripinnatisect, segments linear or ovate, primary divisions in two opposite pairs. Scape slender, 6–10 inches long, leafless. Flower 1¼ inch diameter, white or pale yellow. Petals 5–10, obovate or linear-obovate; achenes in globose heads; styles black, subulate.
East Taieri Hills, Otago; and Masterton, Wellington.
This species 1s probably common, but escapes observation from its resemblance to other species.
Notathlaspi hookeri, n. s. Plate XIII.
A small glabrous plant, with numerous flowering branches, which spring from the centre of a group of leaves. Root stout, fusiform. Branches 4–5 inches long, very narrow. Leaves sessile on the ground, densely crowded in the form of a rosette, linear-oblong, crenate near the tips. Leaves of the flowering branches small, ½ inch long, linear, acute. Pods ½ inch long, very narrow.
Mountains near Lake Wanaka and Lake Ohau.
This beautiful plant ts rare, and the accompanying sketch is taken from an indifferent specimen.
