Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/753

Astelia.] or on rocks. Leaves very numerous, spreading and recurved, 2–5 ft. long, 1½–3 in. wide at the middle, linear-ensiform, narrowed above into a long acuminate point, suddenly expanded below into a sheathing base sometimes 4–5 in. across, conspicuously 3-nerved, glabrous and deeply channelled in front, keeled and with a thin white silvery pellicle beneath; sheathing base black, at the extreme base white and fleshy, glabrous or clothed with copious long white silky hairs. Male flowers: Scape stout, much shorter than the leaves, densely silky below, panicled; branches few, 5–8, simple, 3–9 in. long, 1 in. broad with the flowers on; bracts at the base of the branches very large, leafy, acuminate. Flowers very numerous, densely crowded, ½ in. long, pale lemon-yellow; pedicels slender, ¼ in., each subtended by a linear bract. Perianth 6-partite; segments reflexed, linear, obtuse, silky externally. Stamens as long as the segments; anthers linear, erect, sagittate at the base. Female flowers: Scape stout, branched as in the male; but branches longer and more slender, sometimes 12–14 in. long by ¾ in. diam., usually drooping in fruit. Flowers much smaller; perianth with a hemispherical tube closely surrounding the ovary; segments reflexed. Ovary globose, 3-celled; ovules numerous, attached to the inner angles of the cells. Berry rather small, ⅕ in. diam., globose, bright-red. Seeds small, obovoid, slightly curved, not angled, black.—Raoul, Choix, 40; ''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 260; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 284; Bot. May. t. 5503. A. microsperma, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvii. (1885) 251. A. albicans, Col. l.c. 252. A. hastata, Col. l.c. xix. (1887) 265.

6. A. nervosa, ''Banks and Sol. ex Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel.'' i. 260.—Stout, densely tufted, often forming large masses in moist or boggy ground. Leaves numerous, spreading, 2-5 or even up to 8 ft. long, ½–3 in. broad, or in large specimens as much as 4 in., linear-lanceolate or linear-ensiform, acuminate, dilated at the sheathing base, coriaceous, many-nerved, one nerve on each side stouter than the rest and with the midrib often coloured red, glabrous above or rarely silky, beneath more or less scurfy or clothed with silky appressed hairs, rarely almost glabrous; margins recurved, usually silky; sheathing base densely villous with long