Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/754

714 silky hairs. Male flowers: Scape very stout, erect, 6 in. to 2 ft. long, thickening upwards to the base of the panicle, where it is sometimes 1½ in. diam., obtusely triquetrous, lower portion shaggy with copious long silky hairs, upper part silky or glabrate. Panicle 4–16 in. long, much branched; bracts very long, lanceolate, acuminate. Flowers scattered, dark-green or purplish-green, sweet-scented, ⅓–½ in. diam.; pedicels $1⁄10$–$1⁄6$ in. long. Perianth-segments ovate-lanceolate, spreading, ultimately reflexed. Stamens equalling the segments; filaments subulate; anthers broadly oblong. Female flowers: Scape as in the male but shorter; panicle much shorter and more compact; branches short, stiff, erect. Flowers smaller, crowded, purplish-black, pedicels very short. Perianth segments smaller, reflexed. Ovary broadly conical, faintly grooved,, 3-celled; ovules numerous, attached to the inner angle of the cells. Berry globose, ½–⅔ in. diam., orange-yellow, base enclosed in the persistent and enlarged tube of the perianth, which is also coloured yellow inside. Seeds 2–5 in each cell, smooth, black, sharply angled.—''Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 284. A. grandis, ''Hook. f. ex T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. iv. (1872) 245. A. fragrans, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst.'' xv. (1883) 333.

Glabrous perennial herbs. Rootstock often branched. Leaves numerous, crowded at the base of the stem, linear, distichous, equitant and sheathing at the base. Flowers pedicellate, nodding, laxly cymose; cymes arranged in a broad open terminal panicle. Perianth marcescent; segments 6, distinct, spreading. Stamens 6, hypogynous, or the 3 inner affixed to the base of the segments; filaments thickened; anthers erect or recurved, basifixed, opening by terminal pores or short longitudinal slits. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, 3-celled; ovules 4–8 in each cell; style filiform; stigma minute. Fruit a globose berry. Seeds few, ovoid or compressed; testa black, smooth and shining; albumen fleshy; embryo small, linear.