Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/116

76 700 and 800. Most of the species possess mucilaginous properties, and all are quite innocuous. Many are cultivated for ornament, and one genus (Glossypium) for the woolly covering which surrounds its seeds, and which constitutes the cotton of commerce. Of the 4 following genera, Hoheria is endemic; Plagianthus is found in Australia, and Gaya in South America; while Hibiscus is universal in warm countries.

Trees or shrubs, rarely herbs. Leaves entire or lobed or serrate. Flowers usually small, hermaphrodite or unisexual, in axillary or terminal fascicles or panicles, or solitary. Bracteoles wanting, or small and distant from the calyx. Calyx 5-toothed or 5-fid. Staminal column split at the top into numerous filaments. Ovary 1-celled or 2–5-celled; ovules 1 in each cell; styles as many as the cells, clavate flattened or filiform, stigmatic along the inner side. Fruit of one or several carpels seceding from a common axis, indehiscent or splitting irregularly. Seed solitary, pendulous.

1. P. divaricatus, ''Forst. Char. Gen.'' 86.—A glabrous much-branched shrub 4–8 ft. high; branches tough, slender, divaricating, often much interlaced. Leaves alternate or fascicled on short lateral branchlets; of young plants 1 in. long, linear-oblong, narrowed into rather long petioles, entire or sinuate; of mature plants ¼–¾ in., narrow-linear or narrow linear-obovate, coriaceous, obtuse, quite entire, 1-nerved. Flowers very small, generally unisexual, yellowish-white, solitary or fascicled, axillary; peduncles shorter