long, elliptical or elliptical-oblong, acute or subacute, slightly coriaceous, narrowed into slender petioles ½–1 in. long; margins often undulate. Flowers polygamous or diœcious, small, yellowish, in terminal branched many-flowered compound umbels or corymbs; peduncles and pedicels slender, spreading, silky-pubescent. Sepals ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous. Petals linear-oblong, spreading and recurved, more than twice as long as the sepals. Capsules numerous, small, ¼ in. long, ovoid, acute, glabrous, 2-3-valved.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. ; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 21; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 49; Students Fl. 52. P. elegans, Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 25. P. microcarpum, Putterlich, Syn. Pittosp. 15.
North and South Islands: Common from the North Cape to the south of Otago. Tarata. September–October.
The largest of the New Zealand species, and the only one with a compound inflorescence. The flowers are highly fragrant, and were formerly mixed by the Maoris with fat and used for anointing their bodies.
Order VI. CARYOPHYLLEÆ.
Herbs, very rarely woody at the base; branches usually swollen at the nodes. Leaves opposite, quite entire or minutely serrulate, often united at the base; stipules scarious or wanting. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite. Sepals 4–5, free or cohering into a tubular calyx, imbricate. Petals 4–5 or occasionally absent, hypogynous or rarely perigynous, entire or lobed. Stamens 8–10, rarely fewer, inserted with the petals. Ovary free, 1-celled or imperfectly 3–5-celled at the base; styles 2–5, free or more or less connate into a single style; ovules 2 to many, attached to a free central or basal placenta. Fruit usually capsular, splitting into as many or twice as many valves as styles, very rarely indehiscent. Seeds few or many; albumen farinaceous, usually more or less surrounded by the narrow curved embryo.
A large and very natural order, found in every part of the world, but most abundant in temperate regions, particularly of the Northern Hemisphere; rare in the tropics, unless on high mountains. Genera about 38; species 1000 or more. The order contains some handsome garden plants, as the various kinds of carnations and pinks, but as a whole the species are insignificant, possessing no important properties or uses. Of the 4 genera indigenous in New Zealand, Colobanthus is confined to the south temperate zone; the remaining 3 occur in both hemispheres. More than 20 naturalised species have become well established, all of them of northern origin.
| Sepals united into a tubular calyx (Sileneæ). | |
| Calyx broadly 5-nerved. Styles 2. Capsule deeply 4-valved | 1. Gypsophila. |
| | |
| Sepals free {Alsineæ). | |
| Petals 2-fid. Styles 3–5. Capsule globular or ovoid, opening with as many valves as styles. No stipules | 2. Stellaria. |
| Petals wanting. Styles 4–5. Stamens equal in number to the sepals. No stipules | 3. Colobanthus. |
| Petals entire. Styles 3. Capsule 3-valved. Stipules scarious | 4. Spergularia. |
