Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/147

Rh 

Herbs, shrubs, or trees, of very various habit. Leaves usually alternate, stipulate, compound, rarely simple, sometimes wanting. Flowers generally irregular, hermaphrodite, occasionally regular and polygamous. Sepals 5, usually cohering into a more or less deeply divided calyx, sometimes free, often unequal, occasionally 2-lipped. Petals 5, seldom fewer, perigynous or rarely hypogynous, either papilionaceous or more or less regularly spreading. Stamens 10, rarely less or more, perigynous or almost hypogynous; filaments either free or all connate into a tube surrounding the ovary, or more generally 9 of them united and 1 free. Ovary free, 1-celled, consisting of a single carpel; style simple; ovules 1 to many, attached to the ventral suture. Fruit a pod splitting open along both sutures, rarely indehiscent or transversely breaking up into 1-seeded joints. Seeds nearly always exalbuminous; embryo with large foliaceous or amygdaloidal cotyledons and a short radicle.

All the indigenous genera belong to this suborder, which is characterized as follows: Corolla irregular and papilionaceous, seldom almost regular. Petals imbricate, the uppermost (or standard) always outside in the bud. Stamens definite, usually 10.