Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

XX. AnacardiaceÆ

XX. AnacardiaceÆ.

104 Corynocarpus.—Mr. W. B. Hemsley, in an elaborate memoir published in the "Annals of Botany" for 1903, pp. 743–60, fully discusses the relationships of the genus, and describes two new species, one collected by Archdeacon Comins in Torres Island, New Hebrides, the other by Viellard in New Caledonia. He gives an amended generic character, in which attention is drawn to the curious fact that the gynæceum occasionally has a second rudimentary style. Full descriptions are also given of the three species. The two new ones from Polynesia are closely allied to C. Iœvigata, chiefly differing in the smaller foliage and in the shape of the petaloid staminodia. With respect to the systematic position of the genus, Mr. Hemsley confirms Professor Engler's statement respecting the total absence of resin-canals, which are present in all the other genera of Anacardiaceœ, but considers that this peculiarity is not accompanied by correlated characters of sufficient importance to justify the exclusion of the genus from the order. The discovery of Corynocarpus in western Polynesia is of considerable interest in connection with the often-quoted tradition that the New Zealand species was introduced by the Maoris when they first colonised the country.