Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/115

Hypericum.]  f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 36; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 182; Kirk, Students' Fl.'' 67. Brathys Forsteri, ''Spach in Ann. Sc. Nat.'' ser. 2, v. 367; Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 47.

2. H. japonicum, Thunb. Fl. Jap. 295, t. 31.—A slender procumbent or diffuse much or sparingly branched plant 2–6 in. high; branches ascending at the tips. Leaves small, $1⁄6$–$1⁄3$ in., broadly oblong or oblong-ovate or obovate-oblong, obtuse, quite entire, often glaucous, marked with pellucid dots, sessile; margins usually flat. Flowers smaller than in H. gramineum, solitary or in few-flowered cymes; pedicels short, slender. Sepals oblong or ovate, obtuse or subacute. Petals slightly exceeding the sepals. Capsule broadly ovoid, small.—''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 37; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 182; Kirk, Students' Fl.'' 67. H. pusillum, ''Choisy, Prodr. Hyp. 50; A. Cunn. Precur.'' n. 596.





Herbs, shrubs, or soft-wooded trees, usually with tough fibrous inner bark, young parts frequently clothed with stellate hairs. Leaves stipulate, alternate, often palmately veined, entire or lobed or rarely compound. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or rarely uni-sexual, often furnished at the base with a kind of involucel composed of few or many free or connate bractlets. Sepals 5, valvate, more or less united into a lobed or entire calyx, persistent. Petals 5, hypogynous, contorted in the bud. Stamens many, hypogynous; filaments united into a tube surrounding the pistil usually called the staminal column; anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary 2–many-celled, of 2 to many carpels whorled round a common axis; carpels either distinct or united; ovules 1 or more to each carpel, attached to the inner angle. Fruit either of dry indehiscent or dehiscent cocci, or a capsule with loculicidal dehiscence. Seeds reniform or obovoid; albumen scanty or wanting; embryo often curved, cotyledons broad, foliaceous.

A large tropical and subtropical order, less common in temperate regions, and not extending either far north or south. Genera about 60; species between