Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/210

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Shrubs or trees, glabrous or rarely tomentose or villous. Leaves opposite, penniveined. Flowers solitary and axillary, or in terminal or lateral cymes or panicles. Calyx-tube globose to narrow-turbinate; lobes 4, rarely 5. Petals the same number as the calyx-lobes. Stamens numerous, in manv series. Ovary 2- or rarely 3-celled; style filifonn; stigma small; ovules numerous in each cell. Fruit a berry, rarely dry and fibrous, crowned by the persistent calyx-limb. Seeds solitary or few, globose or variously compressed; testa membranous or cartilaginous. Embryo thick and fleshy; radicle short; cotyledons thick, more or less united or distinct.

1. E. maire, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 564.—A small tree 20–50 ft. high, perfectly glabrous in all its parts; trunk 1–2 ft. diam., with white bark; branchlets slender, 4-angled. Leaves opposite, 1–2 in. long, oblong-lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate to elliptic-oblong, acute or acuminate, rather membranous, narrowed into short slender petioles. Flowers ½ in. diam., sometimes almost unisexual, white, in terminal many-flowered corymbose panicles 1½–3 in. broad; pedicels slender, glabrous. Calyx-tube broadly obconic; lobes very short, broad, deciduous. Petals orbicular, falling avvay early. Stamens slender, ½–⅔ in. long. Ovary wholly adnate to the base of the calyx-tube, 2-celled; ovules numerous. Berry ½ in. long, ovoid, red, crowned by the persistent calyx-limb, 1-celled. Seed solitarv, large; testa hard, coriaceous.—Raoul, Choix. 49; ''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 71; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 74; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 122; Students' Fl.'' 165.

 

Herbs, rarely shrubs or small trees. Leaves opposite or alternate, simple, entire or toothed, exstipulate. Flowers usually regular, hermaphrodite. Calyx-tube often elongated, altogether adnate to the ovary, sometimes produced beyond it; limb of 2–5 valvate lobes. Petals as many as the calyx-lobes, inserted at the top of the calyx-tube, rarely wanting. Stamens as many or twice as many as the petals, inserted with them. Ovary inferior, usually 2–4-celled; style simple, filiform; stigma capitate or 2–4-lobed; ovules usually numerous in each cell, in 1 or 2 series, pendulous or