North Island: Locality unknown.
Founded upon a single specimen in the Kew Herbarium, the exact locality of which is not known. It is evidently a most distinct species, differing from all others found in New Zealand in the many-flowered trichotomous panicles. The anthers are not fully described by Hooker, but in the "Genera Plantarum" the species is referred to the subgenus Phrygilanthus (now often kept as a distinct genus), in which they are versatile.
A parasitic shrub; branches terete, jointed. Leaves opposite or alternate, flat, broad or narrow. Flowers diœcious, in small axillary and terminal panicles. Perianth-tube of the male flowers very small, of the female flowers adnate to the ovary; limb 4-partite, rarely 5-partite. Stamens in the male flowers affixed to the base of the segments; filaments long, filiform; anthers ovate-oblong. Ovary in the female flowers inferior, ovoid; style short and thick; stigma obtuse. Fruit a subglobose 1-seeded berry; mesocarp succulent and viscid. Seed globose; albumen copious, fleshy; embryo almost terete.
The genus is limited to a single species, endemic in New Zealand.
1. T. antarctica, Cham. and Schl. in Linnæa, iii. (1828) 203.—A small branching shrub 2–3 ft. high; bark pale; branchlets finely pubescent. Leaves very variable in size and shape, ½–2½ in. long, from broad ovate-rhomboid to elliptic- or oblong-lanceolate, acute or obtuse, narrowed into short petioles, pale-green, rather thin; veins faint but evident, anastomosing. Panicles shorter than the leaves, 6–12-flowered; peduncles and pedicels slender, pubescent. Flowers small, ⅙ in. diam., greenish-yellow, often very abundantly produced. Segments of the male perianth linear-oblong or oblong-spathulate, of the female narrower and more acute. Stigma large, globular, obscurely lobed. Berry about ¼ in. diam., white or pink spotted with darker pink, pulp extremely viscid.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 101, t. 26; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 108. T. Cunninghamii, Miq. in Linnæa, xviii. (1844) 85. T. pubigera, Miq. l.c. 86. T. undulata, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 329. Viscum antarcticum, Forst. Prodr. n. 370; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 269; Raoul, Choix, 42. V. pubigerum, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 484.
North and South Islands: Not uncommon in wooded districts throughout. Sea-level to 3000 ft. Pirita. October–December.
A most variable plant. Parasitic on Panax, Pittosporum, Carpodetus, Melicope, Myrsine, &c., and occasionally on Loranthus tetrapetalus and L. micranthus.
3. VISCUM, Linn.
Parasitic shrubs; branches opposite, often dichotomous. Leaves opposite or none. Flowers diœcious or monœcious, very small,
