Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/102

62

Annual or perennial herbs, often glaucous, sometimes glandular-pubescent or hispid. Flowers usually small, paniculate or solitary in the forks of the stem. Calyx campanulate or turbinate, 5-toothed or 5-lobed, with 5 broad green nerves separated by membranous interspaces. Petals 5, with a narrow claw; limb entire or notched. Stamens 10. Ovary 1-celled; styles 2; ovules many. Capsule globose or ovoid, 4-valved to or below the middle. Seeds subreniform, laterally attached, embryo curved round the albumen.

1. G. tubulosa, ''Boiss. Diagn. Fl. Or.'' i. 11.—A dichotomously branched erect or spreading annual 2-6 in. high, glandular-pubescent in all its parts, often viscid; stems and branches slender, terete. Leaves linear-subulate. $1⁄6$–$1⁄2$ in., rarely longer. Flowers solitary in the forks of the branches, sometimes appearing axillary from one branch only being developed; peduncles slender, ¼–½ in. long. Calyx tubular, with 5 short teeth. Petals red or whitish-red, linear-oblong, slightly exceeding the calyx. Capsule ovoid-oblong, longer than the calyx, 5-valved at the apex. Seeds black, transversely rugose and pitted.—''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel.'' ii. 325; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 22; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 155; Kirk, Students' Fl.'' 54.

Annual or perennial herbs of very various habit, usually low-growing and diffuse, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers white, solitary or cymose, terminal or lateral. Sepals 5, rarely 4. Petals the same number, 2-cleft, rarely wanting. Stamens 10 or fewer by abortion, hypogynous. Ovary 1-celled; styles 3, or rarely 2, 4, or 5; ovules few or many. Capsule globose to oblong, few or many-seeded, dehiscing to below the middle into twice as many valves as styles. Seeds granulate, tuberculate, or pitted.

A genus of about 75 species, dispersed over the whole world, but most abundant in cold and temperate regions. The 6 indigenous species are all endemic, but 3 others from the Northern Hemisphere have become naturalised. One of these, S. media, Linn., the common chickweed, is now so well established and has penetrated into such remote localities (it has been gathered in