Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/796

756 1. T. (?) inconspicua, Cheesem. n. sp.—A very minute slender perfectly glabrous annual herb, forming dense moss-like tufts ½–1 in. high. Leaves numerous, all radical, linear-filiform, strict, erect, terete. tapering gradually to an acute point. Scapes very short in the flowering stage, lengthening to one-half or three-quarters the length of the leaves when in fruit. Bracts 3–4, erect or erectopatent, linear-lanceolate, acure, thin and membranous, $1⁄12$–$1⁄8$ long. Stamens not seen. Ovaries 6–12 or more, densely crowded, bright-red, stipitate, ovoid or oblong-ovoid, smooth, not angled nor compressed. Styles numerous, very delicate, forming a spreading brush at the tip of the ovary and much longer than it. Ripe fruit elliptic-ovoid, quite smooth, pale yellow-brown with a dark spot at each end.

Small tufted annual or perennial herbs. Leaves all radical or imbricating along the stems, linear or filiform. Scape slender, terminating in 2 floral bracts which are either subopposite or one a little above the other. Flowers hermaphrodite, sessile, from 1 to 5 within each bract; each flower with 1–3 hyaline scales, or rarely the scales altogether wanting. Stamen 1; filament very long, filiform; anther linear-oblong, 1-celled. Carpels from 3–8 (sometimes reduced to 1), connate and superposed in 2 rows; styles as many as the carpels, filiform, free or connate at the base. Fruiting carpels with a membranous pericarp, longitudinally dehiscent.

1. C. strigosa, Roem and Schult. Syst. i. 43.—A slender tufted annual herb 1–2 in. high. Leaves all radical, much shorter than the scapes, expanded into a broad membranous sheathing base below, above very narrow-linear or filiform, hispid throughout with