Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/592

552 A puzzling plant, agreeing in some of its characters with O. sessilifolia, O. glandulosa, and O. cæspitosa, but which cannot be satisfactorily placed with any of the three.

8. O. glandulosa, ''Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 219.—Forming broad patches. Stems stout, branched, creeping and rooting, glabrous or nearly so, 2–6 in. long. Leaves close-set, imbricating, usually distichous, spreading or recurved, ¼–¾ in. long, obovate-spathulate, rounded at the tip, gradually narrowed into a short broad petiole or sessile, entire or obscurely crenate, thick and coriaceous, margins densely ciliate with long jointed hairs, upper surface glandular-pilose towards the tip, under-surface glabrous, veined. Peduncles stout, erect, 1–3 in. long, 1–6-flowered, thickly covered with spreading glandular hairs, as are the bracts, pedicels, and calyces. Bracts 1 to 3 pairs, similar to the leaves; pedicels slender. Flowers ½–¾ in. diam., white. Calyx ¼–⅓ in. long, 5-partite; segments oblong, obtuse. Corolla-tube short and broad; lobes obovate, rounded at the tip. Capsule nearly ⅓ in. long, ovoid, acute, equalling the calyx-segments.

Annual or perennial herbs, more or less parasitic. Leaves opposite, toothed or laciuiate or palmately 3–5-fid, on the flowering branches often insensibly passing into leafy bracts. Flowers in terminal spikes or racemes, or few towards the tips of the branches. Calyx tubular or campanulate, 4-lobed; lobes equal or connate in pairs. Corolla-tube narrow below, dilated above; limb 2-lipped; upper lip erect, concave, 2-lobed; lower lip 3-lobed. Stamens 4, didynamous, converging beneath the upper lip; anther-cells distinct, parallel, equally or unequally mucronate at the base. Style pilose; stigma capitate. Capsule oblong or oblong-orbicular, compressed, loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds usually numerous, pendulous, oblong, longitudinally grooved.