Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/239

Hydrocotyle.] i. 82; ''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 86; Benth. Fl. Austral.'' iii. 346; Kirk, Students' Fl. 190. H. cordifolia, ''Hook. f. Ic. Plant.'' t. 303. H. uniflora, ''Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xvii. (1885) 239.

Perennial herbs, densely tufted or slender and creeping. Leaves simple or 3–5-foliolate, all radical, or fascicled at the nodes of creeping stolons, or cauline and densely imbricated. Umbels few- or many-flowered, simple or irregularly compound; involucral bracts free or connate. Calyx-teeth prominent, usually small, acute. Petals obtuse or acute, imbricate. Disc thick, flat, often confluent with the styles. Fruit but slightly laterally compressed, almost tetragonous, the sides furrowed at the commissure when mature. Carpels subterete or dorsally compressed, with 5 more or less prominent and almost equidistant ribs, the lateral ones not close to the commissure.