Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/197

Gunnera.] size, unisexual; males usually longer than the leaves, stout, 1½–3 in. long. Flowers sessile or nearly so, with 1–2 linear cucullate bracts. Anthers 2, sessile, broadly oblong. Female peduncles in the flowering stage short and hidden among the leaves. Flowers densely crowded, forming a short oblong spike. Calyx-lobes 2–3, minute. Styles long, stout, subulate. Fruiting peduncles either remaining short and concealed by the leaves, or greatly elongated and exceeding them, 1½–3 in. long, in that case becoming stout succulent and coloured. Drupes $1⁄6$–$1⁄5$ in. long, fleshy, yellowish-red, clavate and pendulous or obovoid and suberect.—Kirk, Students Fl. 154. G. densiflora, ''Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst, xxvii. (1895) 346 (not of Hook. f.)''.

8. G. Hamiltoni, ''T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xxvii. (1895) 347.—A stout coriaceous much-branched plant forming broad matted patches; rhizomes as thick as a goose-quill. Leaves numerous, tufted, forming broad flat rosettes 2–4 in. diam., coriaceous; petioles broad and flat, almost winged, sheathing at the base, glabrous or slightly villous; blade ½–1 in. long, ovate or ovate-deltoid, cuneate at the base, acute, closely and minutely toothed, glabrous; veins prominent below. Spikes unisexual; males stout; flowers lax, sessile. Female spikes at first hidden among the leaves; flowers crowded; bracts broadly ovate, laciniate. Fruiting spikes 2–4 in. long; drupes fleshy, clavate, red.—Students' Fl. 155.

Perfectly glabrous slender herbs, usually growing in wet places, often aquatic. Leaves opposite, linear or obovate-spathulate, quite entire, the upper ones often crowded or rosulate. Flowers monoecious, minute, axillary, solitary or rarely a male and female in the same axil, without perianth. Male flowers of a single stamen subtended by two minute bracts; filaments slender, elongated; anther 2-celled, cells confluent above. Female flowers with or without the 2 bracts. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, 4-celled; ovules solitary in each cell; styles 2, elongated, stigmatic throughout their length. Fruit flattened, indehiscent, 4-lobed and 4-celled, ultimately separating into 4 1-seeded carpels.