Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/41



or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs or woody climbers. Leaves all radical or alternate, seldom opposite (Clematis). Stipules wanting, or adnate to the petiole. Flowers regular or irregular, hermaphrodite or more rarely unisexual. Sepals 3 or more, usually 5, deciduous, often petaloid, imbricate (valvate in Clematis). Petals the same number as the sepals or more, hypogynous, free, imbricate, sometimes wanting. Stamens hypogynous, usually very numerous; anthers adnate. Carpels generally many, free, 1-celled; ovules one or several, attached to the ventral suture, anatropous. Fruit of numerous 1-seeded indehiscent achenes or many-seeded follicles, rarely a berry. Seeds small; embryo minute, at the base of copious albumen.

Climbing undershrubs with slender flexuous branches, rarely dwarf and prostrate. Leaves opposite, usually ternately divided into 3 stalked leaflets, which are either entire or more often variously lobed or cut; petioles often twining. Flowers in few- or many-flowered axillary panicles, diœcious in the New Zealand species. Sepals 4–8, petaloid, valvate in the bud. Petals wanting.