3–5 parietal placentas; ovules many or few to each placenta. Fruit either a 3–5-valved capsule or a berry. Seeds usually small; embryo straight, in the axis of fleshy albumen.
An order scattered over the whole world, containing 22 genera and about 250 species. The roots of many of the species are emetic, and are used as a substitute for ipecacuanha. One of the New Zealand genera is found in most countries; the other two have a very limited distribution outside the colony.
| Herbs. Flowers irregular, the lower petal produced into a spur. Fruit a capsule | 1. Viola. |
| Trees or shrubs. Flowers regular. Fruit a berry. | |
| Anthers free | 2. Melicytus. |
| Anthers coherent | 3. Hymenanthera. |
1. VIOLA, Linn.
Annual or perennial herbs of small size. Leaves tufted at the top of a short woody rootstock or alternate on creeping or trailing stems, stipulate. Flowers irregular, on radical or axillary 1-flowered peduncles. Sepals 5, slightly produced at the base. Petals 5, spreading, the lowest usually longer and spurred at the base. Anthers 5, nearly sessile, the connectives flat, produced into a thin membrane beyond the cells, the two lower often spurred at the base. Style swollen above, straight or oblique at the tip. Capsule 3-valved; valves elastic, each with a single parietal placenta. Seeds ovoid or globose.
A large genus, widely diffused in all temperate climates, the species probably numbering considerably over 100. Two of the New Zealand species are endemic, the third extends to Tasmania.
In most of the species of the genus the flowers are dimorphic; some, which are usually produced early in the flowering season, having conspicuous flowers with large petals, as a rule ripening few seeds; others, which appear in late summer or autumn, being much smaller, with either minute petals or none at all, but which ripen abundance of seed. These are usually called cleistogamic flowers.
| Stems slender, elongated. Leaves cordate. Stipules and bracts lacerate | 1. V. filicaulis. |
| Stems slender. Leaves cordate. Stipules and bracts entire | 2. V. Lyallii. |
| Stems short. Leaves ovate. Stipules and bracts entire | 3. V. Cunninghamii. |
1. V. filicaulis, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 16.—Slender, perfectly glabrous. Stems numerous, almost filiform, prostrate, sometimes ascending at the tips. Leaves alternate, ovate-cordate orbicular-cordate or almost reniform, ¼–⅔ in. diam., obtuse or subacute, obtusely crenate; petioles slender. Stipules broad, deeply laciniate; teeth filiform, often glandular-tipped. Peduncles slender, 2–4 m. long; bracts about the middle, linear, toothed or lacerate. Flowers ½ in. diam. Sepals linear-lanceolate. Petals spathulate; spur short.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 16; Kirk, Students' Fl. 40.
