Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/84

44 3–5 parietal placentas; ovules many or few to each placenta. Fruit either a 3–5-valved capsule or a berry. Seeds usually small; embryo straight, in the axis of fleshy albumen.

Annual or perennial herbs of small size. Leaves tufted at the top of a short woody rootstock or alternate on creeping or trailing stems, stipulate. Flowers irregular, on radical or axillary 1-flowered peduncles. Sepals 5, slightly produced at the base. Petals 5, spreading, the lowest usually longer and spurred at the base. Anthers 5, nearly sessile, the connectives flat, produced into a thin membrane beyond the cells, the two lower often spurred at the base. Style swollen above, straight or oblique at the tip. Capsule 3-valved; valves elastic, each with a single parietal placenta. Seeds ovoid or globose.

1. V. filicaulis, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 16.—Slender, perfectly glabrous. Stems numerous, almost filiform, prostrate, sometimes ascending at the tips. Leaves alternate, ovate-cordate orbicular-cordate or almost reniform, ¼–⅔ in. diam., obtuse or subacute, obtusely crenate; petioles slender. Stipules broad, deeply laciniate; teeth filiform, often glandular-tipped. Peduncles slender, 2–4 m. long; bracts about the middle, linear, toothed or lacerate. Flowers ½ in. diam. Sepals linear-lanceolate. Petals spathulate; spur short.—''Handb. N.Z. Fl. 16; Kirk, Students' Fl.'' 40.