Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/69

Drimys.] whorl on a flat receptacle, always 1-celled. Ovules 2 or several, attached to the ventral suture. Ripe carpels either dry and follicular, or succulent and berried, rarely woody. Seeds solitary or several; embryo minute, at the base of copious albumen.

Glabrous and aromatic trees and shrubs, usually of small size. Leaves alternate, exstipulate, marked with pellucid dots. Flowers small. Calyx cupuliform in the New Zealand species, the margin shortly and irregularly toothed or lobed, or entire. Petals 5 or 6 or more, in 2 or more whorls, spreading. Stamens with the filaments thickened above; anther-cells diverging. Carpels 1 to several; ovules few or many. Fruit of one or several indehiscent berries.

1. D. axillaris, ''Forst. Char. Gen.'' t. 42.—A small tree 12–25 ft. in height, rarely more; bark black. Leaves 2–5 in. long, on short petioles, elliptic-ovate or elliptic-oblong, obtuse, coriaceous or rarely submembranous, green on both surfaces or glaucous below, not blotched. Flowers small, greenish-yellow, in fascicles of 3–10 in the axils of the leaves, or from the scars of fallen leaves; pedicels ¼–¾ in. long. Calyx cupular, with 2–6 irregular shallow lobes or notches. Petals 5–6, linear, spreading. Stamens 6–15, in 3 series. Carpels 3–5. Berries 2 or 3, about the size of a peppercorn; seeds 3–6, black, angular.—''A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 290; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 629; Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 47; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 12; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 10; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 1; Students' Fl.'' 22. Wintera axillaris, ''Forst. Prodr.'' n. 229.