Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/174

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Small densely tufted herbs, forming hard compact masses. Leaves densely imbricated, linear, coriaceous, quite entire. Flowers terminal, solitary, sessile, white. Calyx-tube adnatae to the ovary, obconic; lobes 5–7, equal or unequal. Petals 5–10, linear or ovate. Stamens 2 or 3, inserted on the middle of an epigynous disc, and adnate to the base of the styles; filaments subulate or filiform; anthers didymous, extrorse. Ovary inferior, 2- or 3-celled; styles 2 or 3, short and thick or subulate, recurved; stigmas simple or capitellate; ovules numerous, affixed to placentas which are pendulous from the inner angle of the cells. Capsule turbinate, indehiscent, 2- or 3-celled. Seeds few in each cell, pendulous, obliquely ovoid; testa membranous; albumen fleshy; embryo small, remote from the hilum.

1. D. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 81, t. 20.—Stems short, 1–3 in. high, densely tufted, forming broad compact masses in mountain-bogs. Leaves very numerous, imbricated in many series and clothing the entire stem and branches, erect,