Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/496

456 parts, and the slender excessively branched inflorescence, the flowers being almost hidden amongst the crowded leaves and bracts. It is sometimes reduced to a broad rosette of leaves with a short spike-like cluster of densely crowded flowers.

16. G. antipoda, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii. (1895) 340.—Perennial; whole plant very minutely verrucose. Stems numerous, stout, decumbent below, erect above, 3–10 in. high. Leaves ¾–1½ in. long, linear-spathulate or lingulate, obtuse, narrowed into a rather long flat petiole; lower crowded, often spreading or recurved; upper more remote, smaller and with shorter petioles, ascending or erect. Flowers small, ¼–⅓ in. long, white or white streaked with red, usually numerous on slender erect axillary braachlets, each flower in the axil of a linear bract, but sometimes the flowers are solitary in the axils of the cauline leaves. Calyx slightly shorter than the corolla, divided almost to the base; lobes linear-lanceolate, acute. Corolla very thin, divided about ⅔ -way down: lobes linear-oblong.

A small creeping herb. Leaves linear, tufted, entire. Peduncles solitary, terminal, 1-flowered. Flowers small, white. Calyx deeply 5-partite; segments linear. Corolla subrotate, deeply 5-lobed; lobes with broad thin margins, induplicate-valvate. Stamens 5; filaments short, broad; anthers oblong. Ovary 1-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; style very short; stigma broadly 2-lamellate. Fruit globose, fleshy or succulent, indehiscent. Seeds numerous; testa crustaceous.

1. L. Gunnii, ''Hook. f. in Hook. Lond. Journ. Bot.'' vi. (1847) 472.—Small, perfectly glabrous. Rhizome 3–9 in. long, stout, creeping, branched, emitting long thick rootlets. Leaves tufted, ½–1 in. long, narrow-linear or linear-spathulate, obtuse, thick and fleshy, with a broad membranous sheathing base, quite entire. Peduncles stout, much shorter than the leaves. Flowers small, ⅙ in. diam. Calyx almost equalling the corolla; segments linear, fleshy, acute. Corolla divided ⅔-way down; lobes ovate, 3-nerved, margins undulate. Stamens inserted just below the sinus of the