Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/736

696 7. C. macrantha, ''Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 266.—Much larger than the other species, 2–8 in. high or more. Leaf on a petiole ½–3 in. long; lamina ¾–2 in. diam., broadly oblong or orbicular, obtuse or apiculate or rarely 3-lobed at the tip, cordate or 2-lobed at the base, thick and fleshy when fresh, thin and membranous when dry, veins finely reticulate. Peduncle from the base of the petiole, at first short, but elongating as the flower withers, often 4–10 in. long in fruit. Flower large, ½–1 in. long, dark-purple; bract small. Upper sepal narrow, concave, arched over the lip, somewhat expanded above, acute or acuminate. Lateral sepals and petals filiform, 1–2 in. long. Lip large, tubular below, the margins meeting behind the column and enclosing it, base with a rounded auricle on each side, upper part abruptly recurved and much expanded all round, margins undulate, minutely erose ordenticula.te. Column short, stout, bent backwards.—C. papillosa, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 337. Nematoceras macrantha, ''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel.'' i. 229, t. 57.

Leafless terrestrial brownish herbs. Root long, tuberous, usually parasitic on the roots of other plants. Stem simple, erect, furnished with lax sheathing scales. Flowers in a terminal raceme. Sepals and petals connate into a ventricose 5-lobed tube more or less slit on the anterior side. Lip shorter than the perianth, attached at the base to the foot of the column, and adnate at the back to the perianth-tube; lamina erect, furnished with longitudinal raised lines or naked, margins undulate. Column long or short, narrowly 2-winged; rostellum small; stigma near the base of the column, prominent. Anther lid-like, incumbent; pollinia free, granular.