3. SISYMBRIUM, Linn.
Annual or more rarely perennial erect herbs, either glabrous or more or less tomentose or hairy. Flowers small, white or yellow, usually in rather lax racemes. Sepals short or long, equal or the lateral saccate. Petals with long claws. Style short; stigma 2-lobed. Pod long, slender, terete or slightly compressed; valves convex; septum membranous. Seeds usually numerous, not margined, in a single row in each cell; cotyledons incumbent.
A genus of about 80 species, widely spread in Europe and from thence to eastern Asia, and with a few representatives in most temperate countries. The single New Zealand species is endemic.
1. S. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 11.—An erect slender sparingly branched herb 6–18 in. high, usually hoary with minute stellate pubescence, rarely almost glabrous. Leaves chiefly radical, very variable in size and shape, ½–2 in. long; petiole long or short; blade ¼–1 in., obovate to narrow-oblong, quite entire or sinuate-toothed or pinnatifid; lobes usually blunt. Cauline leaves few, smaller. Flowers small, white. Fruiting racemes rather lax; pedicels slender, ⅓–¾ in. long. Pods 1–2 in. long, 115–120 in. broad, narrow-linear, obtuse, spreading, glabrous; valves slightly convex, midrib distinct; style very short. Seeds numerous, small; cotyledons incumbent.—Kirk, Students Fl. 30.
South Island: Nelson—Wairau Gorge, Travers, Rough. Canterbury—Broken River, Coleridge Pass, Porter's Pass, Kirk! Enys! Mackenzie Plains and Lake Tekapo, T. F. C. Otago—Not uncommon in the eastern and central portions of the district, Petrie! Altitudinal range from sea-level to 3000 ft. December–January.
4. PACHYCLADON, Hook. f.
A short stout depressed alpine herb, clothed with stellate pubescence. Rootstock long, thick and fleshy. Leaves small, rosulate. Flowers small, white. Sepals equal. Petals with long claws. Stamens free, toothless. Pod laterally compressed, linear-oblong; valves boat-shaped, keeled, not winged; nerves obscure; septum imperfect. Seeds 3–5 in each cell, obovoid; funicles short. Cotyledons incumbent.
The genus consists of a single species, confined to the southern portion of the colony. Sir J. D. Hooker remarks that in technical characters it is intermediate between the tribes Sisymbrieæ and Lepidineæ, but is probably referable to the latter.
1. P. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 724.—Root very long, fusiform, stout and fleshy, as thick as the finger, in old specimens branched above, crowned with a dense rosette of imbricating radical leaves. Leaves ¼–1 in. long; blade oblong, pinnatifidly lobed, gradually narrowed into a short flat petiole, clothed with stellate pubescence. Cauline leaves few, smaller, digitately lobed. Peduncles numerous, springing from below the leaves and
