style simple; stigma capitate or oblong; ovules numerous in each cell. Capsule globose or oblong, septicidally 2-valved; valves separating from the consolidated placentas and axis. Seeds numerous, small, enveloped by the persistent placentas.
Species about 20, ranging from Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Malay Archipelago to Australia, the Pacific islands, and New Zealand. The single species found in New Zealand is endemic.
1. G. ligustrifolium, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 401.—A perfectly glabrous much-branched shrub 4–12 ft. high; branches slender, terete. Leaves 1½–3 in. long, ovate or elliptic-ovate, acuminate, shortly petiolate, membranous, quite entire, paler beneath, veins conspicuous. Flowers in short axillary corymbs or fascicles, ⅛–⅙ in. diam., greenish-white; pedicels bracteolate. Calyx-lobes ovate, acuminate, ciliolate. Corolla rotate -campanulate; tube short; lobes spreading or reflexed, bearded within. Ovarv subglobose; style very short; stigma 2-lobed. Capsule ⅕ in. diam., subglobose, mucronate, splitting into 2 boat-shaped valves. Seeds numerous; testa brown, pitted.—Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 430; Raoul, Choix, 44; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 177; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 189. G. rupestre, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 207 (not of Forst.).
Var. major, Cheesem.—Leaves larger, 2½–5 in. long.
Var. crassum, Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxix. (1897) 392.—Leaves smaller and broader, ½–¾ in. long by ⅓–⅔ in. broad, broadly ovate or orbicularovate, subacute, rather thick and fleshy when fresh.
North Island: Abundant in lowland situations from the North Cape to Cook Strait. South Island: Marlborough, Buchanan. Hangehange. September–November. Var. major: Three Kings Islands, abundant, T. F. C. Var. crassum: Cliffs near the North Cape, rare, T. F. C.
Order L. GENTIANEÆ.
Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, usually glabrous and bitter. Leaves opposite, rarely alternate or whorled, nearly always simple and entire; stipules wanting. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, solitary or cymose. Calyx inferior, 4–5-lobed or -partite, lobes imbricate. Corolla gamopetalous, hypogynous, 4–5-lobed or -partite, lobes twisted to the right (valvate in Liparophyllum). Stamens 4–5, inserted on the throat or tube of the corolla and alternate with its lobes; filaments filiform or dilated at the base; anthers 2-celled, introrse. Ovary superior, 1-celled, or 2-celled by the meeting of 2 intruded parietal placentas; style single, short or long; stigma entire or 2-lobed or 2-lamellate; ovules numerous in each cell. Fruit a 1- or 2-celled capsule with septicidal dehiscence, rarely fleshy or indehiscent. Seeds numerous, small; albumen copious, fleshy; embryo minute.
