Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/643

Beilschmiedia.]

Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, penninerved or triplinerved; leaf-buds naked or scaly. Flowers diœcious, in 4–6, or rarely many-flowered umbels; umbels axillary or fascicled or racemose, each one enclosed before the expansion of the flowers within a globose involucre; involucral scales 4–6, broad, concave. Perianth-tube ovoid or campanulate or scarcely conspicuous; limb with 4–6 segments, rarely more or fewer. Male flowers: Stamens usually 9–12; the filaments of the inner row or all glandular at the base; anthers all introrse, 4-celled. Ovary rudimentary. Female flowers: Staminodia present. Ovary oblong or ovoid, narrowed into the style; stigma usually dilated and irregularly lobed. Fruit a more or less succulent oerry, seated on the usually enlarged perianth-tube.

1. L. calicaris, Benth. and Hook. f. ex T. Kirk Forest Fl. t. 10.—A perfectly glabrous closely branched leafy tree 30–40 ft. high, with a trunk 1½–2½ ft. diam; bark dark greyish-brown. Leaves alternate, petiolate, 2–5 in. long, ovate or ovate-oblong, obtuse or narrowed into an obtuse point, quite entire, firm but hardly coriaceous, often glaucous beneath; petioles ½–1 in. long. Flowers often very abundantly produced, in 4–5-flowered involucrate umbels arranged in short axillary racemes. Involucral leaves usually 4. Pedicels short, silky. Perianth-segments 5–8, oblong or ovate, obtuse. Stamens about 12; filaments slender, all with 2 stipitate glands near the base. Female flowers rather smaller and less numerous than the males. Stammodia flattened, each 2-glandular near the base. Ovary ovoid; stigma dilated, irregularly 3-lobed. Berry oblong-ovoid, ¾ in. long, reddish, seated in a flat cup-shaped disc composed of the enlarged perianth-tube.—Tetranthera calicaris, ''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 216; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 238. T. Tangao, ''R. Cunn. ex A. Cunn. Precur.'' n. 353. Laurus calicaris, ''Sol. ex A. Cunn. Precur. n. 353; Raoul, Choix,'' 42.