Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/731

Adenochilus.]

Slender terrestrial herbs. Leaf solitary, placed near the middle of the stem, ovate. Peduncle slender, 1-flowered, with 1 or 2 sheathing bracts between the flower and the leaf, the upper of which sometimes bears in its axil the minute rudiment of a second flower. Flower small. Upper sepal erect, incurved, concave or almost galeate; lateral lanceolate, placed under the lip. Petals linear-lanceolate, almost equalling the sepals. Lip shortly clawed on to the base of the column, 3-lobed; lateral lobes large, erect; middle lobe smaller, caudate, reflexed; disc and middle lobe with several rows of small stalked calli. Column slender, curved, winged; wings produced upwards into 2 toothed lobes. Stigma prominent, placed just under the rostellum. Anther terminal, erect, 2-celled; pollinia 4 in each cell, granular.

1. A. gracilis, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 246, t. 56.—Stem slender, glabrous, 5–10 in. high. Leaf sessile half-way up the stem, ½–1 in. long, ovate or ovate-oblong, acute, membranous, veins reticulated. Flower about ½ in. diam., more or less finely glandular-pubescent. Ovary narrow, cylindrical, ½–¾ in. long. Upper sepal adnate to the back of the column towards the base, acuminate; lateral sepals and petals subsimilar, erect, acuminate. Lip much shorter than the sepals and petals and almost concealed by them; middle lobe much smaller than the lateral, caudate, reflexed; calli numerous, stipitate, yellow. Column broadly winged for its whole length, wings produced upwards behind the anther into two broad toothed lobes.—''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 265.

A small slender terrestrial herb. Root of creeping fleshy caudicles thickened here and there into small tubers. Radical leaves 1–3 from the caudicles, rarely at the base of the flowering-stem, petiolate, ovate-orbicular. Cauline leaf or empty bract solitary half-way up the stem, sessile, ovate, acute, often much reduced in size. Flowers 1 or 2, small; perianth horizontal or deflexed. Upper sepal much incurved, broad, concave, almost galeate; lateral placed in front of the lip, lanceolate, margins involute. Petals minute, erect. Lip clawed on to the base of the