Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/439

Pratia. glabrous. Flowers on very short axillary peduncles or almost sessile, large, ½–¾ in. long, pale-yellow, sweet-scented. Calyx-tube broadly turbinate; lobes narrow-triangular. Corolla ⅓–½ in. long; tube very long, cylindrical, swollen at the base; lobes short, spreading or recurved. Anthers glabrous, the 2 lower each tipped with a flat rigid bristle with some smaller ones at its base. Berry globose, ¼–⅓ in. diam. Seeds very numerous, minute.

Herbs of very various habit, or (in species not found in New Zealand) rarely shrubs. Leaves alternate, toothed, seldom entire. Flowers axillary and solitary, or in terminal racemes. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary; limb 5-partite. Corolla oblique, split to the base at the back, 2-lipped; upper lip 2-partite, usually erect, lower 3-lobed, spreading. Staminal tube free from the corolla or rarely adnate to it at the very base; anthers connate, all or the 2 lower only tipped with bristles. Ovary 2-celled; ovules numerous; style filiform; stigma shortly bifid, often surrounded by a ring of hairs. Capsule 2-celled, opening loculicidally within the calyx-lobes into 2 valves. Seeds usually numerous, minute.

1. L. anceps, Linn. f. Suppl. 395.—An erect or decumbent much or sparingly branched leafy herb, everywhere perfectly glabrous. Stems 6–18 in. long, flattened or angular or trigonous, sometimes winged. Leaves very variable in shape and size, 1–3 in. long, the lower ones usually linear-obovate or obovate, gradually narrowed into decurrent petioles, the upper lanceolate or ligulate, gradually passing into the floral leaves, which are smaller, sessile and linear, all sparingly toothed or nearly entire. Flowers small, on short axillary peduncles. Calyx-tube cylindrical, much longer