Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/116

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76
MALVACEÆ.
[Plagianthus.
700 and 800. Most of the species possess mucilaginous properties, and all are quite innocuous. Many are cultivated for ornament, and one genus (Glossypium) for the woolly covering which surrounds its seeds, and which constitutes the cotton of commerce. Of the 4 following genera, Hoheria is endemic; Plagianthus is found in Australia, and Gaya in South America; while Hibiscus is universal in warm countries.
A. Staminal column bearing anthers at the top. Carpels closely united in a ring around a central axis, from which they fall away when ripe (Malveæ).
Flowers more or less unisexual. Styles with linear decurrent stigmas. Carpels usually solitary in the New Zealand species 1. Plagianthus.
Flowers perfect. Stigmas capitate. Carpels several, indehiscent, winged at the back 2. Hoheria.
Flowers perfect. Stigmas capitate. Carpels many, 2-valved, not winged 3. Gaya.
B. Staminal column bearing anthers at the side, naked and 5-toothed at the top. Carpels united into a capsule, dehiscing loculicidally (Hibisceæ).
Bracteoles 5 to many. Capsule 5-celled, many-seeded 4. Hibiscus.


1. PLAGIANTHUS, Forst.

Trees or shrubs, rarely herbs. Leaves entire or lobed or serrate. Flowers usually small, hermaphrodite or unisexual, in axillary or terminal fascicles or panicles, or solitary. Bracteoles wanting, or small and distant from the calyx. Calyx 5-toothed or 5-fid. Staminal column split at the top into numerous filaments. Ovary 1-celled or 2–5-celled; ovules 1 in each cell; styles as many as the cells, clavate flattened or filiform, stigmatic along the inner side. Fruit of one or several carpels seceding from a common axis, indehiscent or splitting irregularly. Seed solitary, pendulous.

A small genus of about 12 species, confined to Australia and New Zealand, the species found in each country being endemic. The New Zealand species are practically diœcious, although a few hermaphrodite or female flowers are occasionally mixed with the males.

(Plagianthus Lyallii, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Flora, 30, is now referred to Gaya. P. linariifolia, Buch. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 394, t. 34, is Coprosma Kirkii, Cheesem.)

Shrub, much branched. Leaves small, linear, entire. Flowers solitary or fascicled 1. P. divaricatus.
Small tree. Leaves linear-oblong, toothed. Flowers in few-flowered cymes 2. P. cymosus.
Tree, 30–60 ft. Leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, serrate. Flowers numerous, in decompound panicles 3. P. betulinus.


1. P. divaricatus, Forst. Char. Gen. 86.—A glabrous much-branched shrub 4–8 ft. high; branches tough, slender, divaricating, often much interlaced. Leaves alternate or fascicled on short lateral branchlets; of young plants 1 in. long, linear-oblong, narrowed into rather long petioles, entire or sinuate; of mature plants ¼–¾ in., narrow-linear or narrow linear-obovate, coriaceous, obtuse, quite entire, 1-nerved. Flowers very small, generally unisexual, yellowish-white, solitary or fascicled, axillary; peduncles shorter