Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/618

578 and orache. Many of the species are common weeds of cultivation, and several of these have become naturalised in New Zealand. Of the 6 indigenous genera, 5 are widely spread in temperate and tropical climates, the remaining one (Rhagodia) is confined to Australia and New Zealand.

Shrubs or more rarely herbs. Leaves alternate or subopposite, sessile or petiolate. Flowers small, hermaphrodite or monœcious, rarely diœcious, sessile or very shortly pedicelled, in axillary clusters or in terminal spikes or panicles; bracts wanting. Perianth 5-lobed or -partite; segments obtuse, concave, hardly enlarged in fruit. Stamens 5 or fewer, inserted at the base of the perianth; filaments subulate, flattened. Ovary subglobose; styles 2 or very rarely 3, linear or subulate. Fruit a small globose or depressed-globose berry, free from the perianth. Seed horizontal, flattened; testa crustaceous; embryo annular, surrounding the copious mealy albumen.

1. R. nutans, R. Br. Prodr. 408.—A much-branched prostrate or procumbent herb, green or the young leaves and branches more or less clothed with white mealy tomentum; stems 9–24 in. long, usually hard and woody at the base. Leaves opposite and alternate, petiolate, ¼–1 in. long, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate or hastate, acute, cuneate or truncate or cordate at the base, entire, rather thin. Flowers minute, polygamous or dioecious, arranged in short loose-flowered spikes or panicles in the upper axils or terminating the branches. Perianth-segments ovate, obtuse, mealy-tomentose. Male flowers usually with 3 stamens; female flowers with 1 or 2 abortive stamens. Ovary depressed-globose; styles 2. Fruit globose, fleshy, bright-red, ⅛ in. diam.—''Benth. Fl. Austral. v. 156; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xvi. (1884) 408.