Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/634

594 branchlets often scaberulous. Leaves when present few and scattered, petiolate or almost sessile, ⅙–1 in. long, linear or linear-lanceolate, often dilated or almost hastate at the base, acute or obtuse, glabrous, sometimes scaberulous on the midrib beneath; stipules short, obliquely truncate. Flowers small, polygamous; those on the male plant in lax axillary simple or branched glabrous spikes, often with a few female flowers intermixed; on the female plant in few-flowered fascicles or short dense spikes, usually with 1 or two male flowers mixed with the females. Stigmas fimbriate. Perianth succulent or remaining unaltered in fruit. Nut exceeding the perianth, black, smooth and shining, triquetrous with the angles obtuse.—''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 237.





Herbs or shrubs, often aromatic and stimulating. Leaves alternate or opposite or whorled, simple, entire; stipules wanting, or 2 connate, or adnate to the petiole. Flowers minute, hermaphrodite or unisexual, crowded on axillary or terminal catkin-like spikes, each subtended by a sessile or stipitate bract. Perianth wanting. Stamens 2 or more, hypogynous; filaments very short; anthers often jointed on the filaments, cells 2 or confluent. Ovary (except in the tribe Saurureæ, which does not occur in New Zealand) 1-celled, with a single orthotropous ovule; style wanting or very short; stigmas 1–6, various in shape. Fruit a small indehiscent berry. Seed solitary, globose or ovoid or oblong; albumen copious, farinaceous; embryo very minute, enclosed in a sac at the apex of the seed.

