Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
Order XXIII. Rosaceæ
Order XXIII. Rosaceæ.
Herbs, shrubs, or trees. Leaves simple or compound, alternate or rarely opposite, stipulate. Flowers usually regular and hermaphrodite, sometimes unisexual. Calyx with the tube free or adnate to the ovary, limb 4–5-lobed, lobes imbricate or valvate. Petals 4–5, rarely wanting, free, inserted on the calyx at the base of the lobes, imbricate. Stamens many, rarely few, inserted on the calyx just within the petals; filaments subulate, often incurved in bud; anthers small, didymous. Ovary of 1 or more free or coherent 1-celled carpels, sometimes adnate to the calyx - tube; styles free or connate; ovules 1 or 2 to each carpel, anatropous. Fruit very various, superior, or more or less inferior and combined with the calyx-tube, of one or many achenes, drupes, or follicles, or a pome, more rarely a berry or capsule. Seeds erect or pendulous, albumen generally wanting; embryo with large plano-convex cotyledons and a stout radicle.
A large order, found all over the world, but most abundant in the temperate and colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere; comparatively rare in the tropics and in the south temperate zone. Genera about 75; species from 1200 to 1500. It includes most of the important cultivated fruits of northern origin, as peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, &c; as well as the rose, with its numberless garden varieties. Of the 4 New Zealand genera, Acœna is mainly South American, but extends northwards to California and south-eastwards to Australia and New Zealand; the 3 others are widely spread in temperate regions. Many northern species, have established themselves in New Zealand, as will be seen on referring to. the list of introduced plants given in the appendix.
Scrambling or climbing shrubs with prickly stems. Fruit of many crowded succulent carpels 1. Rubus. Herbs with pinnately lobed or divided leaves. Styles elongating after flowering. Fruit-carpels numerous, dry 2. Geum. Herbs with pinnate leaves. Styles not elongating after flowering. Fruit-carpels numerous, dry 3. Potentilla. Herbs with, pinnate leaves. Fruiting-calyx usually with stiff bristles, often barbed at the top. Carpels 1, rarely 2 4. Acæna
1. Rubus, Linn.
Scrambling or climbing shrubs, rarely herbs, almost always-prickly. Leaves alternate, simple or compound, usually palmately or pinnately divided into 3–5 lobes or segments or separate leaflets; lets; stipules adnate to the petiole. Flowers in terminal or axillary panicles, rarely solitary. Calyx-tube broad, open; lobes 5, persistent. Petals 5. Stamens numerous. Disc coating the calyx-tube. Carpels many, seated on a convex receptacle; style subterminal; ovules 2, pendulous, Fruit composed of many succulent 1-seeded drupes, crowded upon an oblong or conical dry receptacle. Seed pendulous.
A large genus, common in the temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere, rarer in the tropics and south temperate zone. The fruits of all the species are edible, and some of them, such as the raspberry and blackberry, both of which have become naturalised in New Zealand, are excellent. All the New Zealand species are endemic.
* Leaves 3–5-foliolate.
2. Geum, Linn.
Perennial herbs. Radical leaves. crowded, often rosulate, pinnate or pinnatisect; leaflets toothed or incised, the terminal one often much larger than the others; stem-leaves usually small and bract-like. Flowers in a terminal corymbose panicle or solitary. Calyx persistent; lobes 5, usually alternating with 5 bracteoles. Petals 5. Stamens numerous, crowded. Carpels many; ovules solitary, erect; style terminal, filiform, elongating much after flowering, bent at or below the end. Achenes numerous, compressed, crowded on a dry receptacle, each one terminated by the persistent elongated naked or plumose style.
A genus comprising about 35 species, spread through the temperate and cold regions of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. One of the New Zealand species is widely distributed, another occurs in temperate South America, the rest are endemic.
* Achenes villous. Flowers white except in 1. Stem leafy, 2–3 ft. high. Flowers yellow 1. G. urbanum. Leaves chiefly radical, 3–5 in. long. Panicles few-flowered. Styles longer than the achenes 2. G. parviflorum. Leaves all radical, ¾–1½ in. Flowers small, in 3–5-flowered racemes. Styles shorter than the achenes 3. G. sericeum. Leaves all radical, 1–3 in. Flowers solitary, large, ¾ in. diam. Styles long 4. G. uniflorum. ** Achenes glabrous. Flowers small, white. 3–6 in. high. Flowers in cymose panicles 5. G. leiospermum. 1–2 in. high. Flowers solitary 6. G. pusillum. G. alpinum, Buch. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xix. (1887) 216, is quite unknown to me, and there are no specimens in his herbarium. The original description is vague and insufficient, and the name had far better be dropped.
4. AcÆna, Linn.
Silky or glabrous perennial herbs; stems erect at the tips, decumbent or creeping at the base, or altogether prostrate. Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate; leaflets toothed or incised; stipules sheathing at the base, adnate to the petiole. Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, small, crowded in a terminal globose head, or in an interrupted spike. Calyx-tube persistent, obconic or turbinate or campanulate, constricted at the mouth, terete or angled, naked or at length armed with simple or barbed spines; lobes 3–7, valvate, persistent or deciduous. Petals wanting. Stamens 1–10, very rarely more. Carpels 1–2, wholly immersed in the calyx-tube; style subterminal, short, exserted, dilated into a fimbriate or plumose stigma; ovule solitary, pendulous. Achenes solitary or rarely 2, enclosed in the hardened calyx, which is usually armed with subulate spines or bristles. Pericarp bony or membranous.
Species about 35, widely spread in the temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere, but most plentiful in Chili and Peru. One of the New Zealand species is found in Australia and Tasmania, and another in Fuegia and the Falkland Islands; the remainder are all endemic.
A. Calyx-tube not compressed, 4-angled, usually with a stout spine at each angle, rarely spineless.
* Calyx-tube longer than broad.
A. Huttoni, R. Br. (ter) in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 382, is the European Poterium sanguisorba, Linn., which is sparingly naturalised in several parts of the colony.