Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/666

626 bricate ovate or oblong brownish scales, the upper of which are larger and more closely placed, surrounding the spadices. Spadices numerous at the ends of the peduncles, slender, erect, cylindrical or slightly fusiform. Flowers very minute, densely packed, monœcious or diœcious. Male flowers: Perianth wanting or of 2 minute subulate processes. Stamens 1 or 2; filaments very short; anthers didymous, 2-celled. Female flowers: Perianth adnate to the ovary; limb of 2 or 3 erect subulate segments. Ovary stipitate, ovoid-oblong, 1-celled; style long, filiform; stigma terminal; ovule solitary, apparently pendulous. Fruit minute, crustaceous.

1. D. Taylori, ''Hook. f. in Trans. Linn. Soc.'' xxii. (1859) 425, t. 76.—Rhizome stout, varying in size according to the age of the plant, 1–12 in. diam. or more. Flowering-stems 2–6 in. high, ½–1 in. diam., fleshy when young. Scales from ¼ to ½ in. long at the base of the peduncle, larger above, frequently 1 in. Spadices almost concealed by the upper scales, 10–30 together or more, ¾–1½ in. long. Flowers rather loosely placed towards the base of the spadix, very densely packed elsewhere.—''Handh. N.Z. Fl. 255; Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xxviii. (1896) 493.





Herbs or shrubs or trees of exceedmgly various habit; juice milky, acrid. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, often stipulate. Flowers usually small, unisexual (in Euphorbia reduced to single naked stamens surrounding a solitary pistil and enclosed within a 