Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/605

Vitex.] Calyx 5-toothed or -lobed. Corolla-tube short; limb oblique, 2-lipped; lobes 5, the lowest one usually larger than the rest. Stamens 4, didynamous, usually exserted; anther-cells distinct. Ovary 2–4-celled; ovules solltary or 2 in each cell; style filiform, shortly 2-lobed. Drupe globose or obovoid, more or less succulent; endocarp bony, usually 4-celled. Seeds obovate or oblong, albumen wanting.

1. V. lucens, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxix. (1897) 525.—A large handsome tree 40–60 ft. high, with a massive trunk 2–5 ft. diam., and a large crown of spreading branches; branchlets tetragonous, glabrous. Leaves on long stout petioles 3–5 in. long; leaflets 3–5, shortly petioled, 2–5 in. long, elliptic-oblong or obovate, abruptly acute or almost acuminate, entire, quite glabrous, darkgreen and glossy. Flowers abundantly produced, dull-red, about 1 in. long, arranged in 4–15-flowered dichotomously branched axillary panicles. Calyx short, cup-shaped, truncate or obscurely 5-toothed. Corolla pubescent, 2-lipped; upper lip arched, entire or bifid; lower lip deflexed, 3-lobed. Drupe subglobose, bright-red, ⅔–¾ in. diam.; endocarp bony, 4-celled; seeds seldom more than 1 or 2.—V. littoralis, ''A. Cunn. Precur. n. 390 (not of Decaisne); Raoul, Choix, 43; Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 419, 420; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 203; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 223; Kirk, Forest Fl.'' t. 105.

A much-branched shrub; branchlets slender, 4-angled. Leaves small, opposite, petiolate, entire. Flowers axillary, solitary. Calyx broadly campanulate, 5-lobed; lobes acute. Corolla-tube short: limb oblique, spreading, 2-lipped, 5-lobed; the lower lobe the largest. Stamens 4, didynamous, attached to the base of the corolla-tube, far exserted; anthers 1-celled. Ovary villous at the tip, 4-lobed, imperfectly 4-celled; ovules 1 in each cell, pendulous; style slender, arcuate, 2-fid; branches subulate, shortly stigmatose. Fruit small, sunk in the persistent calyx, 4-lobed to the middle, ultimately splitting into 4 hispid pyrenes. Seed solitary in each pyrene, laterally affixed; albumen wanting; cotyledons large.